As of 8 May, 2009, approximately 3300 people have signed our petition, "Free Trade is the Best Policy".

• View PDF with signatures (157 pages long - 575kb): arranged alphabetically and by country.
• Our April 1 press release features some of the prominent opinion leaders, scholars and distinguished individuals who have signed the petition.

Many of the academics who signed the petition have made statements to explain why they have signed:

“The proof of the enormous economic benefits of free trade is all around us, not least in the impoverished third world that has already benefited mightily from so-called globalization.  It is immoral and irresponsible, or just plain stupid, that politicians, and the special interests they protect, would sacrifice this humanitarian improvement in welfare for their own short-lived personal gain. The Freedom to Trade Campaign has the potential to do far more good for the world than all the foreign aid ever devised.”
Henry Manne, Dean Emeritus George Mason University School of Law.

“Taking ground on history and experience, and not just doctrine, any sensible economist endorses unequivocally free trade, because it brings benefits for all and everyone. Politicians just declare their support for free trade, but in fact, by their acts and votes, undermine the most powerful means to create riches and welfare. Because it is better for himself, any sensible person should convince politicians to preserve coherence between historical record and political action. Vote for free trade, because it is better for each one of us.”
Paulo Roberto de Almeida, Professor of International Political Economy, University Center of Brasília - Uniceub

“There is a straightforward moral argument against protectionism. People only enter into a voluntary exchange if it benefits both: protectionism reduces such exchanges. No government has the moral right to interfere in a person's liberty to responsibly dispose of what they legitimately own: protectionism is precisely such an interference. Hence protectionism makes things worse and is immoral.”
Prof. Nick Shackel, Dept. Philosophy, University of Cardiff

“Protectionalism and abolishing the free trade lead in 1930s World to Great depression, terrible totalitarian dictatorships as nazism and communism and to the II World War - let's not let it happen again. “
Mart Laar, Former Prime Minister of Estonia

“My grandson Paul (10yrs) is highly competitive: he loves to win, but of course doesn't always succeed.  However, by dint of striving he has become very good in two or three areas where he has - perhaps - a natural gift, like music, ski-ing and writing stories.  Free trade does the same for the economy at large.  It's the striving that's important, not the end result. It's competition that's important, not wealth or employment.  If a government strives directly to create wealth or full employment, it will achieve neither.  If it creates a competitive environment, it obliges everyone else to do the striving.  Free trade is essential to a competitive environment, so as friends of prosperity and full employment, let's strive for it!”
Victoria Curzon Price, Professor Emerita, University of Geneva

"Free trade is crucial to making poverty history.  It has put millions on the road to increasing prosperity; it is the best, and the fairest, way for governments to raise people's incomes.  That is why this petition is so important."
Prof. Ian Byatt, Water Commission for Scotland

"We have it in our paper to turn the present recession into a depression. One good way to do that is to succumb to the crude politics and base impulses of nationalism and racism that underlie the demand for protectionism.  A better alternative is to support and extend economic interchange across borders, motivated both by the liberal values of tolerance, choice and openness and by a wealth of empirical evidence demonstrating the relationship between trade and economic growth."
Jeffrey Smith, Department of Economics, University of Michigan

“Almost two century ago, Montesquieu said that "Peace is the natural effect of Trade.  Two nations who differ with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities". Currently, the phenomenon is the proliferation of the number of Free Trade Agreement between States all over the world.”
Prof Mohamed Oudebji, University of Marrakech Faculty of Law, Morocco

“What is the difference between a bird in a cage and a bird that flies freely? Even stronger difference exists between free, open economy and protectionist, closed economy!

All of us from East Europe know, not only from the Fiodor Dostoyevski’s book The House of the Dead, but from our personal experience how difficult life can be in a closed economy… I hope people from the West will not experience the taste of such life!

I am sure that contemporary man, who ask for freedom cannot live in a closed society. All people from this world strive for personal happiness (Aristotle) and it will lead us to the borderless world. It is civilization, human megatrend of development, no matter for the obstacles and pessimism that we face with on that way! I am not pessimistic, because pessimism prevents creation!

That’s why I think that pessimism cannot be significant barrier to the development of free trade.”
Dr Veselin Vukotic, Professor and Founder, University UDG, Montenegro

“In most circumstances, restrictions on free trade are not a good idea (that is, beneficial to the vast majority of people affected). In these times they are disastrous. Protectionist policies implemented on a large scale will not only make our economic problems worse; they will lead to movements that will also threaten our freedoms and, in some circumstances, increase the prospects of war. People everywhere must pressure their governments to resist the Siren calls of protectionism. “
Christopher W. Morris, Professor of Philosophy, University of Maryland, USA

"Free trade among men is as ever one of the very basic conditions to get out of what fundamentally remains a financial crisis and to secure both peace and the opportunity of prosperity. Once again the strain for protectionism as an easy solution for protection and to prevent "contamination" first comes from states and not men. Referring as a deterent to the Great Depression is actually appealing to solutions from the 30s' for a world that has so much changed. A certain form of capitalism and "financialism" might have come to its final stage, but time for a new era of global liberty is opening now."
Joseph Pini, Professor of Law, Paul Cézanne University

“Laissez-faire is one of the basic principles of a free society and of a legal order which respects human beings in their dignity. As contemporary Western history showed in a dramatic way, when free-trade declines even peace is in danger.
My congratulations for this initiative.”
Carlo Lottieri, President of the Istituto Bruno Leoni (IBL)

"No nation was ever ruined by trade" Benjamin Franklin
“Many years ago the historical economist Charles Kindleberger pointed out that the duties escalation that the world saw as part of the protectionist measures against the Great Depression worsened the global trade, situation which was not accompanied by a leadership who left behind those initiatives, this fact was one of several factors that made than a simple recession became into the Great Depression.
An initiative like this is the light on the path that the humanity needs at this moment. Bravo! “
Melvin Garita-Mora

“Protectionism has been intellectually bankrupt for more than 230 years, so ignorance is no excuse. No public servant can honestly promote peace and prosperity without a policy of international free trade, and anyone who tries is guilty of self-interested populism.”
Justin M. Ross, Assistant Professor, Public Finance and Economics, School of Public & Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington

“The less easy it is for citizens to trade freely with each other across borders, the more easy is for tyrants to act freely.  This is a wisdom which has more than 200 years of experience to back it up, but which every aspiring politician seems willing to forget after five minutes of economic woes."
Prof Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, Ph.D. Executive Director, Centre for Voting and Parties (CVAP), European Editor, "Public Choice"

“Free voluntary trade provides the essential foundation for peace, stability and prosperity of any nation. That is why most reasonable economists are 'free traders'. Their faith is based on reason and ideas. There is still hope that IPN's campaign helps to make this world a better - a more peaceful - place.”
Dr. Ingo Bobel, Professor of Economics, International University of Monaco

“Free trade was the engine of world economic growth and poverty reduction in recent decades. The current world recession was due to the lack of effective oversight of financial institutions. This failure has nothing to do with free trade. On the contrary, There is no way we will pull out of this recession without a commitment to maintain and expand free trade.”
Douglas Graham, Professor Emeritus,  Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, The Ohio State University

“Specific policy debates often cloud the issues surrounding economic development because they over-complicate them, sound principles expose the heart of the matter more clearly. Economic prosperity is not rocket science, it quite simply the result of production, exchange and distribution. In real terms, policy controls on international trade raise the costs to moving goods and services across national boundaries. The effects of such increased costs are poverty, disease and starvation.
I believe in people, I believe in prosperity therefore I am compelled to believe in freedom. The world is a fascinating place filled with a nearly infinite variety of cultures and political system but very few have successfully cultivated wealth and prosperity. What has worked in those nations is economic freedom, the liberty of contracts and a promotion of the entrepreneurial spirit.”
Daniel J. D'Amico, PhD Student, Economics Department, George Mason University

“A good part of history is about the daring exploits of those who sought and often found new trade routes.  They knew that expanded trade was the way to greater prosperity.  Reverting to any sort of protectionism turns back the clock to an era that (if we think for a minute) we are happy to have left behind.”
Professor Peter Gordon, School of Policy, Planning and Development, University of California

“When times are difficult, a natural reaction is to restrict free trade.  This is a terrible policy.  Trade restrictions in one country lead to restrictions in others, and  to reduced employment everywhere Also, the restrictions imposed to "protect" jobs lead to higher prices and reduced consumer welfare, the last thing the world needs in times of economic  trouble.    This campaign will benefit the world by giving economists and others a chance to make the case for free trade and hopefully influence policy makers.”
Paul H. Rubin, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics and Law, Emory University

“Academic research has demonstrated that specialization is one of the central--if not the most central--drivers of economic welfare. Free international trade is a prerequisite to achieve specialization gains. For that reason, securing free trade is the international economic policy issue that matters far more than any other international economic policy issue. The re-emergence of protectionism is a threat to the prosperity of human beings around the globe.  IPN's global freedom to trade campaign is a most welcome initiative that seeks to weaken this threat."
Prof. Keld Laursen, PhD, INO, Copenhagen Business School

“Trade enriches all participants and spreads peace - it is hard to imagine a more important mission than dismantling the government barriers to trade.”
Andrew Morriss, H. Ross & Helen Workman Professor of Law & Business, University of Illinois

“Economists don't agree reliably. When they do, listen up: In international trade, freer is fairer and smarter.
Free trade has the authority of Adam Smith, classical economics, neoclassical economics, Keynesian economics, and basically all economics. The International Policy Network is doing a great service in advancing the wisdom and humanity of free trade.”
Daniel Klein, Professor of Economics, George Mason University

“How does the Swedish bumblebee stay in flight? Part of the answer is a strong tradition of free trade.”
Charlotta Stern, Associate Professor of Sociology, Stockholm University

"Argentina should pay a lot of attention to the threats on free trade. It became a prosperous country enjoying its benefits. Not only goods were free to move, the whole country was populated by hard working immigrants.
1930 brought free trade to a halt and populist ideas sent the country into a downward spiral from which it never hardly recovered"
Prof. Martin Krause, ESEADE Business School, Buenos Aires

“As parents we watch small children at play in kindergarten. Interesting, the children maximize their "wealth" by engaging in free trade. You might hear a conversation such as "I will trade you my basketball if I can you let me play with your train.
 A free market develops where children make the most of what they have. You may have an occasional bully that will not trade, but that bully will not over time maximize his welfare. Instead, he will be shunned by other children, thus lowering his overall wealth as well as the wealth of other children.
 As adults, we forget this simple game playing and without fair trade, we become the bully that neither maximizes his own wealth but reduces the wealth of all others in the world. Therefore using a “childhood model" one can see that open and free trade is best for all. “
Wayne Marr, Professor of Business Administration, School of Management, University of Alaska at Fairbanks

“It is no coincidence that over the past several decades, as we have liberalized world trade, that there has been a dramatic reduction in the rates of both global poverty and infant mortality, along with an increase in average life expectancy and a general improvement in human well-being. Trade leads not only to prosperity but to peace among nations. It would be profoundly unwise to step back from this progress with trade restrictions.  I am grateful to the International Policy Network for taking up the cause of freedom.”
Joseph Zoric, Assoc. Prof. of Economics, Franciscan University of Steubenville
Steubenville, Ohio

♠ "International free trade is about more than ensuring that consumers can get the most value for their spending dollar, as important as that is during a recession when incomes are strained.  Trade builds trust and understanding among people regardless of their physical location. Greater interdependence makes war less likely.  These are values we always should cherish, but especially when economic uncertainty provides fertile soil for those who would drive us against each other.  Now more than ever, free trade is best." Dr. Eric Crampton, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Canterbury