The avocado production and trade impose economic, social and environmental challenges for producers, and concerns for consumers. This ‘sustainability challenge’ will be analysed from a social- psychological viewpoint. The case study follows a two-method based approach: a combination of qualitative and quantitative research. Laws and restrictions on the avocado production in Mexico exist, still, avocados are not sustainable. The reasons are unveiled by a closer look into the trade agreements and by interviews with the Mexican civil society. The responsibility for the implementation of controls on sustainable avocados is pushed in a circle from the governments to civil society and back. Ideas on how to change the system are mainly based on EU citizens. Can a greater knowledge and awareness of EU citizens improve the sustainable avocado production in Mexico? The survey reveals that only few participants are fully informed and highly interested in eco-friendly produced avocados. The low percentage can be explained through the high costs for certified avocados, the mistrust in the certification system and the lack of the certified fruit in the supermarkets. However, after some background information the participants stated that they would change their behaviour: buying certified avocados, spending more money and going to special supermarkets. To raise awareness and clarify doubts, civil society in Mexico suggested campaigns in cooperation with civil society in the EU. The idea for the campaign is based on behaviourist theories. A further step is a cooperation between EU citizens with civil societies from Mexico and the EU to pressure the government into a system change to support the offer of cheaper certified sustainable avocados in the EU supermarkets, and thus to raise the standards and controls for the avocado production.

This thesis examines the comprehensive Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) that was signed in 2006 by the governments of Alberta and British Columbia. The central objective is to examine why two successive Saskatchewan governments chose not to sign the TILMA. This thesis also examines the TILMAs influence on subsequent developments in internal trade policy reform in Canada. The three central research questions are: What is the TILMA, and how does it fit within the existing internal trade regulatory regime established under the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)? Why did Saskatchewan not sign the TILMA? What effect, if any, has the TILMA had on establishing a new model or paradigm for internal trade policy in Canada? The key findings are that Saskatchewan did not sign the TILMA because Alberta and British Columbia would not accede to its demands to make exemptions for the procurement practices of municipalities and the subsidiaries of crown corporations. Another factor was the decision by the Saskatchewan government to launch a public consultation process before ratifying the agreement. The public consultation process provided the opponents of the agreement (i.e., municipal government, labour and non-governmental organizations) with an opportunity to organize and express their opposition to the agreement. Their strong opposition to the agreement during those consultations led both the NDP Government and subsequently a cautious Saskatchewan Party Government, which only had a slim majority in the legislature to walk away from what was being portrayed in the media as a very contentious policy decision. Their choice stands in contrast to that of the Liberal and Conservative Governments of British Columbia and Alberta respectively, that chose to sign the TILMA prior to undertaking consultations with the public and community stakeholders. In 2010 the Saskatchewan Party government would sign the New West Partnership Trade Agreement that included almost all of the provisions of the TILMA without public or stakeholder consultation. This thesis reveals that the TILMA has had modest but important effects on establishing a new model or paradigm for internal trade policy in Canada by enhancing the utility and scope of binding enforcement mechanisms and comprehensive interprovincial agreements. It was more comprehensive in scope than interprovincial agreements that had been signed previously to supplement the AIT. Contrary to what some had envisioned or proclaimed, the TILMA did not have substantial transformative effects either in addressing internal trade barriers in Canada or in supplanting the existing framework of internal trade policy established under the AIT.

This thesis examines the comprehensive Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) that was signed in 2006 by the governments of Alberta and British Columbia. The central objective is to examine why two successive Saskatchewan governments chose not to sign the TILMA. This thesis also examines the TILMAs influence on subsequent developments in internal trade policy reform in Canada. The three central research questions are: What is the TILMA, and how does it fit within the existing internal trade regulatory regime established under the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)? Why did Saskatchewan not sign the TILMA? What effect, if any, has the TILMA had on establishing a new model or paradigm for internal trade policy in Canada? The key findings are that Saskatchewan did not sign the TILMA because Alberta and British Columbia would not accede to its demands to make exemptions for the procurement practices of municipalities and the subsidiaries of crown corporations. Another factor was the decision by the Saskatchewan government to launch a public consultation process before ratifying the agreement. The public consultation process provided the opponents of the agreement (i.e., municipal government, labour and non-governmental organizations) with an opportunity to organize and express their opposition to the agreement. Their strong opposition to the agreement during those consultations led both the NDP Government and subsequently a cautious Saskatchewan Party Government, which only had a slim majority in the legislature to walk away from what was being portrayed in the media as a very contentious policy decision. Their choice stands in contrast to that of the Liberal and Conservative Governments of British Columbia and Alberta respectively, that chose to sign the TILMA prior to undertaking consultations with the public and community stakeholders. In 2010 the Saskatchewan Party government would sign the New West Partnership Trade Agreement that included almost all of the provisions of the TILMA without public or stakeholder consultation. This thesis reveals that the TILMA has had modest but important effects on establishing a new model or paradigm for internal trade policy in Canada by enhancing the utility and scope of binding enforcement mechanisms and comprehensive interprovincial agreements. It was more comprehensive in scope than interprovincial agreements that had been signed previously to supplement the AIT. Contrary to what some had envisioned or proclaimed, the TILMA did not have substantial transformative effects either in addressing internal trade barriers in Canada or in supplanting the existing framework of internal trade policy established under the AIT.

My dissertation is a speculative analysis of the historical contexts of a social protest, based on the notion of "articulation" advanced in the field of cultural studies. Focusing on the 2008 candlelight protest against U.S. beef in South Korea, my goal is to explore the historical contexts of the protest, which formulate the identity of the protest. Since the U.S. beef deal was approved by the Korean government as a precondition for the Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the United States, the protest has been considered (notably by leftists in Korea) as a resistance against post-colonial overtones and fascist eco-political principle in the era of neoliberal globalization. Instead of understanding the protest from such an essentialist perspective, my research makes a commitment to exploring the exterior factors that drove the possibility of the protest. The notion of articulation, a mode of explanation that moves beyond any linear sort of causality, provides a framework to view the protest not as a unity, but as a linkage of multi-dimensional (political, economic, social, and cultural) elements of historical contexts. Based on my journal entries written during my participation in the protest, and the journal articles about the 2008 protest written by the scholars in Korea, I explored the main characteristics of the protest in comparison with the conventional social movements in Korea, and discovered that the 2008 candlelight protest had featured the "food safety issue," "participants with heterogeneous desires," "carnivalesque modality," and an "ambiguous goal." From these main features, I inferred four salient axes of historical vectors (and their forces) including "political democratization and depoliticization," "food industrialization and wellbeing fever," "market liberalization and job insecurity," and "advanced communication technology and carnivalesque culture." My research findings present that the 2008 candlelight protest is not a definite insurgent element calling for any deep change in the dominant political and economic paradigm, but exists as a paradoxical event at the cusp between subordination to and resistance against neoliberal globalization. The main contribution of my research project entails (1) pushing the boundaries of communication studies on social resistance by including the notion of articulation which situates the 2008 candlelight protest within its historical contexts, (2) developing speculative analysis as a critical and cultural studies method for exploring structural forces operating in deep layers of our experiences, (3) delineating the new modalities of contemporary social movements by examining the concrete textures and hues of the 2008 candlelight protest, and (4) offering new ways of (re)thinking the principles of efficiency and economic growth by interrogating a case of food industrialization and global exchange.

This dissertation discusses two independent topics. The first part of the dissertation relates three theories of international economics (comparative advantage, competitive advantage, and competitiveness), and formulates the thesis that incorporating them in the form of readily available individual competitiveness indicators in OR/MS models offers promise to enhance decision-support for the strategic planning of global supply chains in general, and for locating facilities in particular. The objectives of this research were to relate each of these theories and to describe their interrelationships; to describe measures provided by two well-known annual competitiveness reports; and to illustrate application of the theories as a means of supporting the thesis of the research, and justifying the research questions we pose for future research. While this research discusses topics relative to the broader background of global supply chain design, it illustrates applications associated with facility location, a component of the global supply chain design. In the last chapter of the first part of the dissertation, we provide a vision to foster future research that will enhance the profitability of international enterprises under NAFTA. The second part of the dissertation deals with the DSCR model with capacity expansion and contraction. The strategic dynamic supply chain reconfiguration (DSCR) problem is to prescribe the location and capacity of each facility, select links used for transportation, and plan material flows through the supply chain, including production, inventory, backorder, and outsourcing levels. The objective is to minimize total cost. The configuration must be dynamically redesigned over time to accommodate changing trends in demand and/or costs by opening facilities, expanding and/or contracting their capacities, and closing facilities. The problem involves a multi-period, multi-product, multi-echelon supply chain. Research objectives are alternative formulations of DSCR and tests that identify the computational characteristics of each model to determine if one offers superior solvability in comparison with the others. To achieve the first objective, we present an initial MIP model, a refined model that relates decision variables according to a convenient structure, and branch and price (B&P) schemes for the refined model. We found that the network-based formulation offered superior solvability compared to the traditional formulation.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In January 2005 Australia implemented the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). The AUSFTA was a historic document because it laid out a closer trading association between Australia and its close ally, the United States (US). The Agreement was generally welcomed in both countries but it contained provisions that were controversial, perhaps none more so than those covering pharmaceuticals. In Australia there was deep concern over the effects of these provisions on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). A Senate Committee investigating the likely impact of the AUSFTA was apprehensive that the provisions would result in the PBS paying higher prices for some medicines. The many outcomes from the research reported in this thesis are preliminary but amongst them, three stood out. First, the AUSFTA instituted a number of small but significant changes to Australian pharmaceutical policies and processes. Some changes, around transparency and listing times, were positive while others, such as sponsor hearings before the PBAC, will probably have limited negative impact. Second, there is now a need to consider the AUSFTA commitments when Australian health policy is reassessed in the future, which will now make Australia’s regulatory processes more complex. Third, it is argued that the AUSFTA may have had input into major reforms of the Australian PBS. These reforms delivered on an outcome that had been sought by the US: a weakening of reference pricing as used by the Australian PBS. The benefit from the change to reference pricing for Australia is unclear, but the PBS is now more vulnerable to higher prices for new medicines in the future.

As relações entre a União Europeia (UE) e os seus parceiros comerciais incluem Acordos Preferenciais de Comércio (APCs) com países em desenvolvimento para produtos agrícolas e industriais, destacando-se países da África, Caraíbas e Pacífico. A política de caráter cooperativo no setor agrícola da APC-UE, possui por objetivo a preservação do ambiente, segurança alimentar, crescimento econômico e desenvolvimento sustentável. Excetuando-se esses Acordos Preferenciais, a União Europeia possui no setor agrícola um dos segmentos de maior proteção comercial. Trata-se do principal mercado para os produtos agrícolas brasileiros. No entanto, esse setor, no Brasil, poderia obter melhor desempenho caso a UE não praticasse tarifas de importação elevadas aos seus produtos. Assim sendo, aplica-se no presente trabalho o modelo gravitacional para mensurar o efeito de criação ou desvio de comércio, resultado da aplicação de tarifas pela União Europeia com relação aos seus 48 parceiros comerciais selecionados, incluindo-se o Brasil, e também o impacto de um possível Acordo Preferencial de Comércio entre Brasil e União Europeia. A análise enfoca os efeitos para um grupo selecionado de produtos agrícolas, que recebem a incidência de picos tarifários, incluindo-se carne bovina congelada, carne bovina fresca, carne de frango, carne suína, açúcar bruto e suco de fruta. O período considerado para a análise compreende os anos de 1996 a 2013, ou seja, desde o alargamento da União Europeia no ano de 1995. O modelo gravitacional é estimado por meio do modelo de efeitos fixos e os resultados mostram a existência de desvio de comércio com relação às importações europeias de carne bovina fresca (SH 0202) e carne suína (SH 0203) e impacto positivo da concretização de um Acordo Preferencial de Comércio para carne bovina fresca (SH 0201), carne bovina congelada (SH 0202) e carne de frango (SH 0207). Tais resultados confirmam as hipóteses levantadas na literatura com relação à consolidação do referido acordo. Ou seja, os resultados indicam que o Brasil pode aumentar suas exportações de produtos agrícolas para a União Europeia caso ocorra um acordo preferencial que elimine as barreiras tarifárias impostas pelo bloco da UE. / Trade relations between the European Union (EU) and its trading partners have feature for the granting of tariff reduction or exemption for developing countries, through preferential agreements. With regard to preferential trade agreements (PTA) put in place by the European Union, stands out those performed with the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries for agricultural and industrial products. The cooperative nature of politics in the ACP-EU agricultural sector has the objective of preserving the environment, food security, economic growth and sustainable development. Except for some preferred sealed agreements with some countries, the European Union has in the agricultural sector, one of the segments most subject to trade protection. With regard to Brazil, the European Union is the main market for its agricultural products. Even so, the Brazilian agricultural sector could have a better performance if the EU did not ascribe excessively high import tariffs to their products. Therefore, a gravity model is used in this analysis to measure the effect of trade creation or trade diversion as a result of the tariff applied by the European Union in relation for 48 selected trading partners, including Brazil and also the impact of a possible Preferential Trade Agreement between Brazil and the European Union. The analysis focuses on the effects for a selected group of agricultural products receiving the incidence of tariff peaks, including frozen beef, fresh beef, chicken, pork, raw sugar and fruit juice The period considered for the analysis covers the years from 1996 to 2013, which incorporates the enlargement of the European Union starting at 1995. The gravity model is estimated using the fixed effects model and the results show the existence of trade diversion with respect to European imports of fresh beef (HS 0202) and pork (HS 0203) and positive impact of the implementation of a Preferential Trade Agreement for fresh beef (HS 0201), frozen beef (HS 0202) and chicken (HS 0207). These results confirm the hypotheses rose in the literature with regard to the consolidation of the Agreement. That is, the results indicate that Brazil could increase its exports of agricultural products to the EU in the event of a preferential agreement eliminating tariff barriers imposed by the EU bloc.

O MERCOSUL e a União Européia (UE) firmaram no ano de 1995, o Acordo Marco de Cooperação Inter-Regional, que tinha como objetivo fortalecer as relações bi-regionais e a preparar as condições para a criação de uma Associação Inter-Regional, que abrangesse a área comercial, cooperação econômica, tecnológica, financeira, e também cultural e social. A concretização da Associação representaria um grande ganho para o MERCOSUL devido à importância comercial que a UE representa para o bloco, sendo a sua principal parceira tanto nas exportações quantos nas importações. Desde a assinatura do acordo, os dois blocos realizaram diversas rodadas de negociações, mas não conseguiram avançar na direção de maiores realizações. Um dos principais entraves tem sido a intransigência da UE, principalmente no que diz respeito ao conceder melhores ofertas no setor agrícola. O presente trabalho objetiva, portanto, analisar a evolução das negociações comerciais entre os dois blocos, a fim de identificar os entraves no setor agrícola, que contribuíram para o impedimento da implantação da Associação Inter-Regional. A evolução das rodadas de negociações entre os dois blocos mostrou que o protecionismo agrícola é um dos pontos cruciais para a obtenção de um acordo de livre comércio. O fracasso das negociações provou para o MERCOSUL, que independemente das negociações acontecerem no plano multilateral ou bilateral, a UE não está disposta em maiores concessões. Portanto, enquanto a UE mantiver as subvenções, responsáveis por enormes excedentes na produção agrícola européia, não será possível a obtenção de melhores resultados, que conduzam a implantação de uma área de livre comércio entre MERCOSUL e União Européia. / MERCOSUR and the European Union (EU) signed in 1995, the Framework Agreement on Inter-Regional Cooperation, which aimed to strengthen bi-regional relations and prepare the conditions for the creation of an Interregional Association, covering the commercial area, economic cooperation, technological, financial and also cultural and social. The concretion of the Association would be a great gain for Mercosur due to the commercial importance that the EU accounts for the block, which is its main partner in both exports and imports. Since signing the agreement, the two blocks had several rounds of negotiations, but failed to move toward greater accomplishments. A major obstacle has been the intransigence of the EU, particularly with regard to grant better offers in the agricultural sector. This paper aims, therefore, to examine developments in trade negotiations between the two blocs, in order to identify the barriers in the agricultural sector, which contributed to impeding the implantation of the Inter-Regional. The evolution of rounds of negotiations between the two blocs has shown that agricultural protectionism is one of the crucial points for achieving a free trade agreement. The failure of the negotiations proved to MERCOSUR, that independently the negotiations occur multilaterally or bilaterally, the EU is not willing to further concessions. So, while the EU maintains subsidies, responsible for huge surpluses on European agricultural production, it is not possible to obtain better results, which conduce to establishment of a free trade area between MERCOSUR and the European Union.

The main target of my thesis is to examine the recent integration development in North America from the point of view of three member countries of NAFTA. I examine their strategies towards this agreement and their impact on the three economies and on north american integration as a whole.

This paper aims at contributing to the debate about Japan’s leadership capabilities. Lately, scholars from all around the world have referred to Japan as the “new leader of free trade”. This comes as a surprise, as the country has always been the archetype of a passive and mercantilist state. Therefore, what role is Japan playing in contemporary free trade agreements? What leadership style, if any, is the country exercising? What changes has Japanese leadership experienced in the last decades? Testing theories of this kind is challenging because there is limited information on the topic and most of it is only available in the language of the country in matter. Drawing on a case study based on the role of Japan in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and analyzing it from Young’s framework on political leadership, this article concludes that Japan is exercising a leadership role in contemporary FTAs.