This study examines regional integration in Africa with a focus on the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, COMESA. COMESA, with roots that go back to the beginning of the 1980?s, is one of the largest and most diverse areas for regional integration in Africa and has currently 19 member countries. The goal of the COMESA co-operation is to become a fully integrated area by the year 2025 that will merge into the African Union (AU). AU will then, in turn, create a fully integrated African continent in a not too far away future.

The relationship between free trade and the environment is often considered conflicting and the debates surrounding it are infected. My thesis deal with this conflict and how environmental concerns are integrated in three regional free trade agreements, North American Free Trade Agreement, The common market of the southern cone (MERCOSUR) and Southern African Development Community (SADC). I point out how the organizations differ from each other in this respect and I present a possible explanation to why they differ. The explanation is founded on the theory of the environmental Kuznets curve and that environmental concerns will depend on which level of development the member states in the organizations have. To judge and rank the organizations I have composed a model based on a pre-existing description of the trade and environment conflict.

Background: Sweden is a country with 30 million memberships in different non- profit organizations. In total these organizations employees about 400 000 people, through employment and voluntary work. The complete turnover for non- profit organizations is 100 billion Swedish crowns per year. It has only since 2001 been compulsory to follow the Swedish account rules BFL and ÅRL. Trade unions are one type of non-profit organizations with the main purpose to care for the interest of its members concerning their working condition.

This rapport examines six Swedish workplace unions, in manufacturing internationalised companies, degree of internationalised trade union work. The report is based on interviews with local shop stewards. All local workplace unions were in some form internationalised. They were placed in three different groups of strategies: Passive, Tactical and Strategic. The Passive union only tried to get information; the Tactical unions were reactive against initiative from company management and used the channels provided of Industrial Relation laws.

New Zealand is currently the third largest global producer of kiwifruit and thus plays an important role in the international market. Exports of kiwifruit are also of significant horticultural value for New Zealand and in 2007 the kiwifruit industry accounted for export values of NZ$790 million. The global kiwifruit market has experienced substantial changes in recent years and is likely to change significantly in the near future due to developments in production sources, adjustments to trade policy settings and shifts in consumer preferences. The New Zealand kiwifruit industry needs to consider what the impacts of these changes might be so that future strategies can be constructed effectively. Little quantitative modelling has been done in New Zealand to consider the impacts of changes to the global kiwifruit industry. The major contribution of this research was the development and calibration of a kiwifruit industry-specific partial equilibrium trade model. The model was then used to examine the impacts on New Zealand producers of these trade-related changes in the global kiwifruit market.

In the light of ever increasing international trade around the globe, affecting men and women in all countries, it is surprising that so little attention is given its gender effects. The effects of trade are said to be gender neutral, but could potentially act reinforcing on the existing gender patterns in a society. The aim of this thesis is to examine whether the implications for men and women in relation to trade liberalization can be found to differ. By stylizing some differences between men and women, this is done by examining the theoretical implications mainly via the Heckscher-Ohlin model and through a Beckerian approach. The implications found are then compared with the findings in existing empirical work.

Trade Unions are finding it increasingly challenging to appeal to employees and all trade unions alike are encountering new challenges to attract and retain members. Additionally a more diversified and educated labor market is creating demands for trade unions to better meet individual needs. The purpose of this study was to explore and analyze the role of branding in Unionen, the largest white-collar trade union in Sweden, and how branding efforts help in attracting and retaining trade union members. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is based on theories related to corporate branding and relationship marketing. Furthermore, the study develops and introduces the concept of member branding in the context of trade unions.

How affected are the sugar production in Mozambique and Tanzania by EU sugar regime? What does the EU sugar reform constitute in these countries?Using theories regarding free trade and anti-free trade, I am able to answer these questions. The aim of this paper is to study how the various sugar agreements with EU affect the sugar production in Mozambique and Tanzania. Therefore I am using a method called a most similar system design in this comparative case study. The conclusion is that the EU sugar regime is the main reason to how the sugar productions in developing countries are.

AbstractLarge states are not as interdependent as small countries are. Due to the extent of the home market, producers in large countries can sell the greater part of their products at home. Accordingly large countries become less dependent of other states. Large states are consequently in a better position to promote their self- interests internationally than smaller states are. Applying this reasoning on a large state such as France I come to conclude that she probably exerts this policy of self- interest in an area like free trade.

This thesis deals with the supranational organization of European trade unions. The European trade union movement is, via its umbrella organization the ETUC, an institutionalized social partner within the European Union. The ETUC is a very diverse organization with great potential of conflicting interest among its members. This thesis therefore seeks to explore the dynamics and interest heterogeneity of the ETUC. Drawing on previous research and literature it formulates a number of hypothesises to test what variables that influence the member organizations policy preferences (i.e.

?The importance of representation and structures to establish influence. A study of the Trade Unions Youth Activities within The Swedish Trade Union Confederation.?-Katrin OlofssonThis essay is studying the importance of representation and structures for the youth to establish influence, within the Trade Unions of The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO. More specific it is about the youths influence in each trade union´s executive committee.

Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone är geografiskt utmärkt placerad vid bedrivande av handel och utgör idag en internationell hub. Området har också tillgång till en god infrastruktur som ständigt förbättras. Waigaoqiao erbjuder sakkunniga konsulter och har ett starkt styrelsestöd. I framtiden då Free Trade Zones inte kommer att vara det enda valet för svenska företag som vill etablera sig i Kina, utan att behöva ingå joint ventures eller liknande avtal, kommer Waigaoqiaos handelsbefrämjande miljö att vara avgörande vid ett etableringsval i just det området. De skattefördelar och tullfördelar som idag existerar i Waigaoqiao kommer att försvinna när Kinas WTO-avtal i sin helhet träder i kraft.

Sammanfattning Den här uppsatsen behandlar den höga organisationsgraden som vi har i Sverige idag. Huvudsyftet är att ge ett svar på varför organisationsgraden är så hög. Syftet är också att undersöka hur fackföreningsrörelsen kommer att utvecklas i framtiden. Uppsatsen inleds med en redogörelse av faktorer som bidragit till den höga organisationsgrad vi åtnjuter idag. Fackföreningarnas struktur behandlas I första delen av uppsatsen.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate if Latvia´s pattern of trade has become more similar to the mature market economies, after Latvia´s independence 1991.Today, the intra-industry trade (IIT) dominates the trade of mature market economies. One of the pioneers of intra-industrial trade is Paul Krugman, who was the first to emphasize the importance "of scale and consumers' desire for variety" in explaining the basis for modern commerce. Customers get more variety and usually cheaper goods when the market gets bigger. I mainly use the modern trade theories to explain the trade pattern in Latvia. To measure how Latvia has developed its intra-industry trade, and thereby is approaching the mature market economies´ trade pattern, I use the Grubel-Lloyd index (GL-index).

After the formation of the European Union internal market in 1992, member state specific obstacles and barriers were largely removed. This was especially the case in harmonised industries where standardisation and technical regulation have led to legal certainty. Despite this, a large range of trade regulation continues to remain distortional to trade, in addition to the ongoing tariffs and subsidies. The key trade regulations relate to a number of areas involving technical regulations such as production labelling and the protection of intellectual property rights. Whilst policy makers claim justification based around the need to correct market failure in delivering desired outcomes, the question is whether these regulations are appropriate responses to market failures or if they have simply been imposed in an attempt to protect domestic markets.