Abstract
The second-hand clothing market is a multi-billion-dollar industry that has helped many developing countries stimulate their economy. Over the years, however, the quality of secondhand clothing has declined as the fast-fashion market rises. Countries such as India and the Philippines have banned secondhand clothing imports to protect their textile industries from demise. African countries like Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda also attempted to ban secondhand clothing imports but were sanctioned with a threat of removal from the African Growth Opportunity Act. This article explores how Anti-Dumping Laws fail to fulfill their ordinary meaning in the secondhand fashion market in African countries by analyzing the trade of secondhand clothing between the United States and Ghana under Ghanaian Anti-Dumping Laws. The Article then provides recommendations for amending World Trade Organization Anti-Dumping Laws that fully solve the issue of price discrimination as well as the other harmful environmental effects of dumping. Lastly, this Article provides solutions to persons who rely on the secondhand clothing trade considering the anticipated impact of the proposed change. “They think that in Africa here, sorry to say, we are not like human beings. Even if somebody knocked on your door to beg, you cannot just . . . pick something from your dustbin. In this case . . . they’re doing that to us.” - Emmanuel Ajaab, Ghanaian Secondhand Clothing Importer
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Bisi Ogunmefun,
Bend Down Select: Analysis of Secondhand Clothing Waste in Africa Under the Current Anti-Dumping Regime,
64
Nat. Res. J.
247
(2024).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol64/iss2/5
