The problem with naming and shaming wrongdoers is that, all too often, they turn out to be shameless. That is the problem the World Trade Organisation is encountering in its valiant efforts to prevent an economic drama turning into a protectionist crisis.

The latest of the WTO's updates on its members' trade policies makes for unfortunate, if not wildly surprising, reading. New trade- restricting measures outnumber acts of liberalisation by two to one.

On the bright side, at least the pace of protectionism is slowing a little compared with earlier in the year, and the world remains well short of the insane lurch into isolationism of the 1930s. Less happily, trade restrictions continue to mutate into new and different forms, many of which find it all too easy to evade the rules of existing trade treaties.