Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, these are all countries that the West has moral qualms over.  And yet, despite some selective economic sanctions, Europe and the US continue to heavily trade with them. Is this a sign of hypocrisy and weakness on the part of Western leaders? Or is morality simply not a good guide to foreign policy? Politician, journalist and academic Lord Andrew Adonis, one of the U.K.’s leading economists John Kay, and macroeconomist, novelist and former UN humanitarian Janne Teller, recently debated the moral perils of international trade at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London.

Several years ago, when it was clear that Saudi Arabia had been systematically brutalizing its female and homosexual population, the BBC’s weekly current affairs show, ‘The Big Question’, ran a debate with the question ‘Should the UK cut ties with Saudi Arabia?’