The Compass

China has been described as the greatest threat to the World Trade Organisation, and its biggest champion. The WTO wasn’t designed to handle China, and its entry has had seismic consequences. If China won’t change, can the WTO adapt? Without reform, could China break the WTO?

And finally, can the post-war rules and institutions survive in a recognisable form, or are we already witnessing the birth of a very different world?

The World Trade Organisation was established in 1995, building on earlier global trade mechanisms. Did this represent a capture of the systems by neoliberals after the Cold War? Now President Trump is waging a trade war on China and sidelining the WTO. Does he have a point – and can the system survive?

Afua Hirsch examines the principle of self-determination, which Franklin Roosevelt insisted on including in the Atlantic Charter. It was a powerful force behind the liberation struggles which peaked in the 1950s and '60s as a wave of decolonisation swept the world and countries such as Tunisia, Jamaica, Nigeria and Guyana achieved independence. But it is not the same as a right to separate and form your own country, as the Catalans have recently been reminded. And it has a forgotten dark side as a justification for population transfer, going back to 1923 when Greece and Turkey agreed to uproot two million people in a forced population exchange.

Presenter: Afua Hirsch

(Photo: Illustration of a knitted ball resembling Earth unravelling. Credit: Nadia Akingbule)

The UN Charter and Security Council were supposed to prevent aggressive wars. Who has broken the rules, and how much damage has that done? It is often said that the great powers have always done what they wanted and ignored international law. But will new forms of war present even more of a challenge?

Presenter: Afua Hirsch

(Photo: Illustration of a knitted ball resembling Earth unravelling. Credit: Nadia Akingbule)

In early August 1941 Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met on a US flagship off Newfoundland and drew up The Atlantic Charter. It laid the foundations of an international system that has been in place ever since. But is it now under unbearable strain?

Has the international human rights machinery worked? What about the global human rights movement? Many believe we are now at a crisis point, with populism and the rise of China both challenging the project. Others think the human rights movement is itself partly to blame.

Journalist and former barrister Afua Hirsch talks to a wide range of international lawyers, historians and thinkers and asks if the world order forged after World War Two is coming apart.

Presenter: Afua Hirsch

(Photo: Illustration of a knitted ball resembling Earth unravelling. Credit: Nadia Akingbule)

Ten years ago the world financial system had a heart attack. Gripped by panic, banks stopped lending, cash ran out and the world came to the edge of a financial precipice.

Professor Ian Goldin questions whether lessons have really been learned from what happened a decade ago and asks whether we are now better prepared to identify and prevent the next one? He talks about the threat that climate change might pose with Lord Nick Stern, asks Peter Piot – the man who discovered Ebola – how problematic a pandemic might be and questions whether financial innovation is really a good thing with Anat Admati, co-author of The Bankers’ New Clothes.

Presenter: Ian Goldin

(Photo: Bitcoin. Credit: Omar Marques/Getty Images)

As the world dealt with the fallout of the 2008 financial crash the hunt began for someone to blame. One group of people was suddenly thrust into the spotlight - economists. If they could not see such a catastrophe coming, had the world’s economists been asleep on the job, inept, or just blind to the crucial warning signs?

As an economist himself, professor Ian Goldin thinks economists deserve a share of the blame. He looks at the ways the financial crash led to a crisis in his own profession, and to huge changes in the way economics is thought about and taught. Why should we care? Remember these are the people who steer the financial systems on which we all depend. If they give bad advice, it can wreck your economy. Ian argues that economics needs to get away from some of its old ideas about treating human behaviour as a rational, rather macho science, and open itself up to ideas from across the whole world. But in the end, should we all try harder to be economically literate and better able to spot dangers on the horizon?

(Photo: Business man with his head in his hands. Credit: Getty Images)

In 2008 when the financial systems of the world’s richest countries crashed, others did not. Asian nations, especially China, bounced back quickly from the crisis, and were able to capitalise on their financial power to build up their reputation as global players.

Did Governments’ handling of the 2008 financial crisis – when some chose to implement austerity and some didn’t - make things better or worse? Ian Goldin, professor of Globalisation and Development at Oxford University, visits Illinois in the US to find out how people were affected by the collapse in the housing market. He also talks to Christine Lagarde – the head of the International Monetary Fund – about how austerity measures were implemented in Europe. And Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Minister of Finance in Nigeria, talks about how the crisis was felt in Africa.

Presenter: Ian Goldin

(Photo: Child with banner, Credit: Getty Images)

In 2008 the world financial system had a heart attack. Gripped by panic, banks stopped lending, cash ran out and the world came to the edge of a financial precipice. As millions of people lost their jobs and as the shock that started in Wall Street reverberated around the world, the crisis led to a collapse of the Greek, Spanish, Icelandic and other economies.

Professor Ian Goldin looks at the origins of the crash and he examines how it affected our trust in authorities and experts. He travels to New York to talk to some of the world’s leading academics including Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs and Adam Tooze and he hears from a former Lehman Brothers employee about the final days of the troubled business whose collapse led to the financial crisis.

Presenter: Ian Goldin

(Photo: Two employees of Christie's auction house manoeuvre the Lehman Brothers corporate logo in London