Covid has shown that the market cannot solve a global crisis. Now countries such as Britain must realise that too
Late on Friday, with only days to go until its 12th summit was due to commence, the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced that its most important meeting of the year couldn’t proceed. With alarm spreading about the Omicron Covid-19 variant, the WTO’s host country, Switzerland, closed its borders to southern Africa and introduced quarantine restrictions for visitors from Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong, where cases have been detected, making travel for many government delegations impossible. The summit, billed as critical for an institution in crisis, is now indefinitely postponed.
The irony, not lost on many delegates from Africa, Asia and Latin America, is that global trade rules overseen by the WTO are actually at the heart of the dreadful situation the world is now confronting.
Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now
