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This paper addresses ethical, legal and psychosocial aspects of Global Kidney Exchange (GKE). Concerns have been raised that GKE violates the non-payment principle, exploits donors in low and middle-income countries, and detracts from the aim of self-sufficiency. We review the arguments for and against GKE. We argue that while some concerns about GKE are justified based on the available evidence, others are speculative and do not apply exclusively to GKE but to living donation more generally. We posit that concerns can be mitigated by implementing safeguards, by developing minimum quality criteria and by establishing an international committee that independently monitors and evaluates GKE's procedures and outcomes. Several questions remain however that warrant further clarification. What are the experiences and views of recipients and donors participating in GKE? Who manages the escrow funds that have been put in place for donor and recipients? What procedures and safeguards have been put in place to prevent corruption of these funds? What are the inclusion criteria for participating GKE-centers? GKE provides opportunity to promote access to donation and transplantation but can only be conducted with the appropriate safeguards. Patients' and donors' voices are missing in this debate.

While the trade in human organs remains largely in the darkness as it is hardly reported, detected or scientifically researched, a range of key institutional stakeholders, professionals, policy-makers and scholars involved in this field show remarkable high levels of moral condemnation and share a rather unanimous prohibitionist line. Some have equated this phenomenon to genocide or talk about ‘neo-cannibalism’, others present it as dominated by mafias and rogue traders. However, organ trafficking takes very different shapes, each one with their own ethical dilemmas. Simplistic formulaic responses purely based in more criminalisation should be critically evaluated. Based on a qualitative study conducted on the demand for kidneys (transplant tourism) in and from the Netherlands, we present in this article some of the main empirical results and discuss their implications. But before doing that, this contribution briefly describes the global patterns of contemporary organ trade and the way the problem has been framed and constructed by international policy bodies, professional (transplant) organisations and some scholars.