THE RIGHT TO BOYCOTT- ne plus ultra

Boycott: To shut out from all social and commercial intercourse: to refuse to take part in, deal with, handle by way of trade etc." Chambers 20th Century Dictionary 

History is replete with instances when people have used this ultimate weapon of protest in asserting their rights or in fighting for a cause. 

The famous Boston Tea Party in mid 19th century was a protest by American people against their British colonial masters. In the dark of the night, the protestors had overthrown tons of tea chests into the sea near the Boston harbour. This was an uncivilised protest, but the British faced civilised protest in India through the weapon of boycott and civil disobedience. 

First, cloth produced in Manchester was boycotted and people in large numbers turned to home- spin cloth. Later, salt produced by factories was boycotted as the British introduced a new tax. In protest, people started collecting salt from seashores. 

Whenever people have found themselves pushed to extremes they have used boycott to register protest against that infringed their rights. 

Boycotts have also been called against products, which were produced by unethical businesses. For example, cosmetics produced where animals have been used their safety .Not only animals welfarists but consumers too joined in the protest. In recent memory the boycott of Shell products by consumers in Europe stands out as a unique example. (See box) 
 
 

The realm of reactive boycotts can be divided into social, trade related and based on consumer grievances. 

Trade boycotts have been used effectively to block out entry of a potentially harmful or undesirable product in the marketplace when all other ways of obstructing its entry has proved useless. Not so long many supermarkets and retailers in Europe decided not to stock irradiated food even if such irradiation becomes legal. The list included such big names as Littlewoods, and Marks and Spencer. 

Whenever other traditional means of registering protest and seeking redressal like advocacy, representation and litigation fails, boycotts have been seen to be very effective as the ultimate weapon. As such, it deserves to be enshrined as an alienable right of every consumer. 

Consumer boycotts have been intelligently used in the past to check malpractice of producers. To cite one case of recent times: the pharmaceutical giant Ciba-Geigy faced a mass boycott of its medicines in Sweden for continuing to produce harmful oral drug oxiquinoline. The sales of the company fell drastically. In the end Ciba-Geigy was forced to take corrective measurers. 

Nestle has often faced consumer boycotts because of its malpractice in marketing of breast-milk substitutes. Consumers in various countries similarly boycotted British beef exports when the scare of the mad-cow-disease spread. 

Often people proactively boycott commodities or practices, which though not having immediate impact on their lives are one way or the other harmful in the long run. Thus we have a World No Tobacco Day on 31 May to educate people on the ill effects. The Buy Nothing Day on 29 November is a protest against the unsustainable consumption patterns that world over shows little sign of warning. 

Of course, there will be some who would say that the right to boycott is implied in the right to choice and therefore, need not be separately spelt out as another right. But this logic misses the simple fact that right to choice covers the small sphere of economic rights, while the right to boycott has a much wider scope and application. It promotes both consumers' rights and responsibilities. 
 

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