AbstractTitle: DREAMING OF A UNITED ?NORDEN? (The North)? Four central Nordic actors about the progress and extent of Nordic cooperationThe Nordic cooperation are often spoken as in terms of a peaceful international cooperation that is built upon a wide range of similarities among its members, such as a common culture, language similarities and a related kind of political system etc. But in spite of the fact that these so called propitious factors are present, many of the attempts that has been made trying to bring the states of the North (Norden) closer together has turned out unsuccessfully. Therefore no far-reaching Nordic cooperation has come to be implemented. The aim of this essay is to find out what the main reasons could be why this has been the case.I have chosen to take a closer look at the motives given by the former Nordic Prime ministers Tage Erlander (Sweden), Karl August Fagerholm (Finland), Einar Gerardsen (Norway) and Mauno Koivisto (Finland).

This study´s focus was a group of participants of a social movement called The Zeitgeist Movement. The purpose of this study was to understand and convey what causes participants of this movement to engage despite that the prevailing culture teaches them otherwise.With qualitative methodology of participatory observation and semi-structured interviews with ten participants, our objective has been to answer the following questions: What are the driving forces that make these people act, which approach do they have to ?reality? and how do they relate to it, and what are the potential consequences with this approach?The study has shown that their critical and questioning attitude towards their perception of reality and their social constructivist view of it lead to conflicts between them and their fellowmen. The data was then analyzed with Alfred Schütz phenomenological theories in synthesis with Zygmunt Baumans critical societal analysis and theories.The study's focus was on the Gothenburg chapter of the Swedish Zeitgeist Movement. We did not make any comparisons with other national or international chapters of the movement..

?During the past few years cooperation between the EU member states has expanded considerably in areas such as justice and homeland affairs. International cooperation in criminal justice has become more important as borders between EU countries has been lifted and because of this, various criminal groups have also had more opportunities to commit crimes cross borders. The Italian mafia groups in particularly have been operating in almost every country in Europe and have exploited the possibilities offered by the EU. The increase of organized crime in Europe has created a demand for EU to step up their actions against the organized crime.The purpose of this essay is to investigate exactly how the significant EU is has been in battling organized crime in Italy.

In 2011 the International Accounting Standards Board issued amendments to IAS 19 Employee Benefits. The new standard is effective from January 1st 2013 and one of the largest changes in the standard is the elimination of the corridor method. Through the corridor method companies had the possibility to defer actuarial gains and losses resulting from their defined benefit obligations (pension obligations) and leave them unrecognized off the balance sheet. According to the new standard companies reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards will have to recognize all actuarial gains and losses immediately in other comprehensive income. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the financial key ratios of Swedish listed companies will be affected by the elimination of the corridor method.

The Brussels I-Regulation, often referred to as the Jurisdiction Regulation, is said to be the matrix of the European judicial cooperation system within the area of international private law. The Regulation states how jurisdiction is to be determined in an international dispute. The aim of the Regulation is to ensure that parties in a dispute within the EU have access to justice.The Regulation is considered to be working well in general, and have been since it came in-to force in 2007. Although it is held to be well functioning it does not exclude that some improvements might be needed. The commission ordered a review of the Regulation and the result was that some deficiencies were identified.

Titel                                    Indirect economic impacts of a national environment certification as financial business strategyAuthors                              Ida Antonsson, Emma Hellberg and Linn RingströmAdvisor                              Arne SöderbomCourse                               Bachelor thesis ? business administrationSeminar date                     2013-05-27Purpose                              The main aim of this study is to describe and analyze how private corporations use national environment certifications as a business strategy to gain power and financial benefits. By studying already certified corporation in Sweden, this study aims to understand, explore and develop already existing theoretical theories and concepts concerning ?national environment certifications?.Background                      All corporations have an impact on the environment. Therefor many corporations use a variety of worldwide certifications to be able to prove to ?others? that the corporation meets national- and international set goals.

During 2009-2010 Sweden participated in an international military operation whose intention, according to the Swedish news media, was to fight Somali pirates. The purpose of this thesis is to study various decisions and documents behind the Swedish efforts, both military and foreign aid, regarding the matter of Somali pirates during the years 2009-2010 and analyze the results using an interpretation of the security-development-nexus-theory. The method used is text analysis based on the hermeneutic idea of understanding and interpretation.The thesis studies the international resolutions and national decisions that lead to the military operations in the Gulf of Aden and also the international strategies and national approaches regarding Sweden's assistance in the development of Somalia. The theoretical section contains an interpretation of the vast security-development-nexus-theory. The concepts of security and development are first presented separately and then collectively in terms of military security, societal security, economic security, regime security and human security.

This thesis aimed to, with the help of a case study, investigate and discuss state responsibility towards climate refugees. The state of Tuvalu was selected because of their vulnerability as a low-lying island state. This was fulfilled by on-site study how the state Tuvalu acted to climate threats, determine if the future migrants from Tuvalu can be counted as climate refugees and find out if they are by that definition included by the UN Refugee Convention. The result indicated that the state of Tuvalu is adapting to climate threats, that in the future the population can be seen as climate refugees, if they are forced from their homes due to climate change, and that they, despite that definition, can not be included by the UN Refugee Convention. The study also indicates a need for greater international protection of climate refugees by, for example, an expansion of the UN Refugee Convention so that these vulnerable people do not fall into oblivion due to a question of definition..

The purpose of this essay is to examine and compare the news covering of Swedens three biggest cities (the metropolitan areas) and their surrounding areas with the covering of the rest of the country (the provincial areas) in two daily national newspapers, Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter. The aim has been to answer the following questions:- What amount of the news coverage in Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter concern the metropolitan areas compared to the provincial areas, and how do these two newspapers differ in the news covering of these areas?- Is there a difference in the news articles size and content, depending on weather they concern the metropolitan or the provincial areas?- How has the balance between news concerning metropolitan and provincial areas changed over the recent 20 years?The theories used in this study are News values, the media commercialization and Popular Journalism, and The Agenda Setting Theory. The method that has been used is a Quantitative Content Analysis.Despite the essays hypothesis, that the news coverage in the two newspapers would be dominated by material from the metropolitan areas, the result showed that a majority of the examined articles concern the provincial areas. It also showed that Aftonbladet has a bigger percentage of provincial news than Dagens Nyheter.

The purpose of this thesis was to study Holmen?s possible future ownership, concerning their forestland in Sweden. We have compared the strategy of the present owning of forests with three different alternatives. These three alternatives are: 1) selling all the forestland, 2) establish a new company which owns the forest where Holmen is the major stockholder and finally 3) an alternative were the two northerly regions are sold. We used Holmen?s annual account from the year 2002 as a bare year and made a reconstruction of the annual account in the three different alternatives.

The present paper is part of a project carried on by the Swedish Section of the International Commission of Jurists. Sweden has ratified several major international human rights instruments. Most of the rights are covered by national law, and only in exception is there a discrepancy between national and international law. Such a discrepancy is found in the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, in which the State parties agree on penalizing and prohibiting the founding of and participation in racist organizations. Sweden is not complying with this statute, despite the fact that the government has ratified the convention.

In 1975 the Indian president Indira Gandhi proclaimed the emergency period which would go on until 1977. Under this time approximately 8 million men and women were sterilized in the name of family planning. Many of them did not volunteer. This was not just an Indian con- cern because the family planning program was largely funded by international aid. The Swe- dish involvement in the program was debated 1977?1980, in what has been called ?SIDA?s Watergate?.

Female genital mutilation is an ancient custom, practiced mainly in African countries. For several years, Africans has immigrated to Sweden and many of the women are genitally mutilated or circumcised. The aim of this study was to bring some clarity to the attitudes and experiences regarding female genital mutilation among those who are affected. Articles for this literature review were searched for in international databases, and in the university library database. The outcome of this study shows that health care staff is in need of greater knowledge about this custom, in order to be able to handle the situation appropriately.

How does the recent wave of preferential trading arrangements affect, the incentives for further trade liberalization of member states, and the possibility of obtaining global free trade? And are there any differences in this aspect between custom unions and other forms of preferential trading arrangements? These questions are well debated and have divided international trade researchers into two camps, one in favour for preferential trading arrangements and the other side against them. I have used well acknowledged researchers in the area of international trade theory to make a literature study of the above mentioned key elements in the debate. When comparing the two sides I have focused mainly on their differences, assumptions and results. I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing to be alarmed by of the wave of regionalism that?s occurring in the world today, but caution should be applied and more research in this area is necessary before any certain conclusions can be drawn.

The aim of this research is to examine the Göteborg International Film Festival Fund (GIFFF, 1998?2011) as a part of the festival's overall operations, to provide answers to questions about if/how the Fund can be understood as an expression of the festival's fundamental values, and how the Fund can be recognized within the festival's strategic development. The GIFFF is also discussed in relation to contemporary academic studies that interpret Western film funds for the developing countries ? such as Hubert Bals Fund and Fond Sud Cinéma ? as an expression of Eurocentrism.The investigation is based on the contemporary film festival research, previous academic studies on Göteborg International Film Festival, the festival?s printed material ? such as programs and press releases ? as well as interviews with the former festival director Gunnar Bergdahl, who initiated the Fund, and festival editor Ulf Sigvardson, who ran the Fund during its final years of existence.The conclusions are: The Fund's objectives ? such as to support filmmakers and film schools in the developing countries, and also to screen their films at the festival ? can be seen as a broader interpretation of the vision that was determined by the festival founders, that the festival should be a platform for independent filmmaking and also help screen the films that otherwise would not reach the Swedish audience. Also, the Fund was a significant part of the festival's expansion strategies during the 1990s.