Peter Sutherland is chairman of Goldman Sachs and chairman of the board of BP. A barrister by profession, he was previously Attorney General for Ireland, and European Commissioner for Competition Policy. He was director-general of GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and its successor, the WTO (World Trade Organisation).

Recent articles

Does international trade help poor people? The man who created the World Trade Organisation, has no doubt: the answer is yes. In a confident interview, Peter Sutherland champions economic integration, welcomes the entry of China, India, Russia and Brazil into the global economy, and claims that the failure of the latest WTO summit at Cancún needn’t be permanent – provided both north and south are committed to multilateralism.

Can globalisation be equitable? Is world poverty and inequality the result of too much globalisation, or not enough? Is an active role for government now endorsed even by neo-liberals? And in an age of global economic forces, must governance itself become global? On the eve of the World Trade Organisation summit in Qatar, the founder of the WTO and chairman of BP discusses these issues with the Harvard University academic and leader of Britain’s Liberal Democratic party in the House of Lords.