By Julie Carrington
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, (BGIS) — Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley wants to see the dismantling of the old global order and replaced with a new order that promotes world peace.
Mottley issued the charge today as she delivered the inaugural World Trade Organization (WTO) Presidential lecture, under the theme Reinventing the Global Order, from the WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, which was carried via YouTube.
She told the gathering that we lived in a world where inhabitants were seeing a global order that was “simply the embalming of the old colonial order that existed at the time of the establishment of these institutions”.
“And we have, therefore, to ask ourselves whether we are in a position to deliver on the peace that would permit us all to live in a just and inclusive society in each of our countries, or whether we are in fact creating a world where peace is elusive. […] Peace both in terms of security, but also peace that comes from economic justice. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves if we can live in this global order,” Mottley stated.
The prime minister articulated the view that achieving a new global order required a transformative agenda that was dependent on the will of all citizens, and queried whether the world was ready to exercise the global moral leadership and exercise the commitment and the political will “necessary, strategically, that will allow us to pursue the transformative agenda in order for us to be able to reinvent the new global order”.
Mottley contended that today’s global order perpetuated a situation of first and second class countries and those countries, by their actions, had determined the rights of a few and had exercised their powers to veto decisions at the roundtable on critical matters.
The prime minister called for a safety net of protection for vulnerable states against superior countries, pointing out that the present global order had compromised the development of vulnerable states.
“This is a global order that is compromising equally our right to development; our right and capacity to attain the sustainable development goals of each and every one of our countries which have submitted is critical for our populations in order for them to prosper,” Mottley stated.
The prime minister cautioned that if we have to service the debt incurred in the last two years, then “we do not have the position and the capacity to borrow to finance our development with respect to the sustainable development goals by 2030, it will become an illusion”.
Mottley said the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia had reset the global order, and added that the old order had not delivered on peace, prosperity, and stability in the world.
