In an era of globalization, international trade is fast becoming a fact of life - too fast, in fact, for many people to make sense of. The increasing numbers of conflicts, both inside and surrounding international negotiations regarding trade liberalization, all illustrate the breadth and depth of concern amongst governments, academics, activists and civil society alike. Regardless of where their sympathies lie, this large and growing audience worries about the potential impacts of an unfettered global marketplace. Chief among those concerns are questions of how new rules promoting economic liberalization will impact the earth's ecosystem's, and the development choices faced by countries bound to those rules. A growing but disparate scholarly and popular literature has emerged to answer these questions. "The Earthscan Reader on International Trade and Sustainable Development" synthesizes this literature and consolidates the lessons learned thus far to guide academics, practitioners, activists, and the public at large in the next decade of work on these issues.