Corruption adversely affects various aspects of economic activity, including international trade. As corruption affects international trade in a number of ways, various countries and international organisations have made co-ordinated efforts to effectively control corruption in general and in the context of international trade. Despite the World Trade Organization's role as a body for making and enforcing international trade rules, it has not actively participated in the fight against corruption in the trade arena. This paper explores why the World Trade Organization has made no anti-corruption initiatives and provides a review of the current role that is played by the organization in the international anti-corruption movement, through its existing framework. The study also includes a review of the different instruments put in place by other organisations and countries that have actively participated in combating corruption in international trade, and whether the World Trade Organization should follow-suit.

The rapid growth of countries that opened their markets to international trade has led to an increase in the number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). A number of countries have signed these agreements with their regional trade partners in order to reap the benefits of free trade. Such benefits include: trade stimulation, integrated markets, foreign exchange gains, and economic growth, to name just a few. The main objective of RTAs is to stimulate bilateral trade by integrating the markets of member states. However, RTAs have not achieved the same level of success globally. In some regions around the world, intra-bloc trade remains low post RTA ratification, especially in developing countries. A review of the trade literature revealed a number of reasons for the failure of the regional economic integration model to stimulating bilateral trade. Such reasons include: inadequate economic policies; lack of administrative capacity and infrastructure; protectionist trade policies; political immaturity and instability; and border issues. However, according to trade literature, there is an argument that, in recent years, most of these factors have been taken care of, yet intra-bloc trade remains low. In a quest to provide more answers for this puzzle, trade researchers have identified risk, which is defined as a situation where there are multiple possible outcomes (with known probabilities), but the ultimate outcome is not known, as a possible answer to the low intra-bloc trade mystery. Risk has also been identified as a key impediment to bilateral trade, especially between developing economies, where risk is inherent. However, investigations of the trade-risk nexus are still in their infancy, and are said to be flawed. Such investigations which have generally been done in developed countries have focused on the impact of one risk event on trade, in isolation. This approach is inadequate as risk is a multi-dimensional phenomenon with spill-over effects which require a more holistic approach to explore interdependencies between seemingly unrelated events. As such, there is still no framework for aggregating risk in the trade processes of an economy. This means therefore that the impact of risk on trade is still not yet fully understood. This also means that conclusions drawn from trade-risk studies involving developed countries could be misleading for developing countries because of the differences in underlying economic conditions. This study, therefore, pursued two main objectives: (1) to develop a risk aggregation framework in the form of a composite risk index; and (2) to determine the impact of risk on bilateral trade. In pursuit of the first objective, this study, used the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) as a case study, and developed a framework for quantifying risk. The output of this framework was a composite risk indicator which measures the level of risk in an economy. To construct the composite risk index, this study adapted a framework used to construct other social indexes e.g. the human development index; environmental sustainability index; and disaster risk index. The results from this exercise showed that the SACU member states (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa) had different levels of risk, as expected. The results also showed that Lesotho and Eswatini had higher risk, which was constant or increased over time. This implies that these countries were less resilient to risk, as they were not able to address the risk over time, probably due to the lack of resources. Botswana, Namibia and South Africa proved to be more resilient as their risk decreased over time. In pursuit of the second objective, this study augmented the gravity model with the constructed composite risk index to determine the impact of aggregate risk on bilateral trade flows. This study addressed a number of issues around the gravity model related to; specification, and structural econometric concerns. Agriculture commodity trade data (from 2000 to 2018) was also preferred over aggregated trade data. From the results, it was found that imports increased, though marginally when the incidence of risky events increased. The analysis showed that a 10 per cent increase in risky events in the domestic economy increases imports by 0.65 per cent. This result is probable because risk could potentially disrupt the production of goods and services by domestic producers. As such, domestic producers would be unable to meet domestic demand and, therefore, goods would have to be sourced from external markets. On the export side, risk was found to have quite a substantial negative impact. A 10 per cent increase in the incidence of risky events decreased bilateral trade by 10 per cent. This result is intuitive because risk in the domestic economy is expected to affect exports more than imports. This result was also expected because risky events in the domestic economy affect the production of goods. This means the exporting country would have fewer goods available to satisfy domestic demand and even fewer for export. According to the results, aggregate risk on the importing economy leads to an increase in bilateral trade, whereas it decreased bilateral trade on the exporting end. This means that risk is a major impediment for countries with export-promoting trade policies. The policy implications are that, SACU member states need to build their individual and collective resilience through effective risk mitigation policies and strategies. SACU operates the common revenue pool (CRP), which is a form of risk mitigation, but it needs proper management. The CRP has a customs component which compensates Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Namibia for the trade diverting exploits of South Africa in the bloc. There is also a developmental component which is meant to fund developmental projects. The development component of the pool needs to be channelled towards infrastructural development to reduce transportation costs. This needs to be coupled with interventions that build the resilience of domestic producers since risk was found to impede exports. This would reduce the high dependence on the South Africa economy by the other countries in the SACU bloc. / Thesis (PhD (Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / PhD (Agricultural Economics) / Unrestricted

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This case study explores how Toshiba Corporation, a Japanese electronics company, managed the crisis caused by its subsidiary. Toshiba Machine Co. (TMC)'s illegal exporting activities to the Soviet Union. Between 1981 and 1984, TMC sold eight military sensitive machine tools to the Soviet Union. It was a violation of COCOM (Coordinating Committee on Export Controls) regulations that monitor the sales of sensitive military equipment to the Communist countries. Because the sales allegedly damaged the U.S. national security, the Congress accused TMC as well as its parent company, Toshiba, and threatened sanction to ban importing an Toshiba products. How did Toshiba identify and confront the crisis? What was the impact and the effect of tactics and strategies employed by Toshiba? The major discussions focus on Toshiba's crisis management efforts. This study is based on articles from American and Japanese newspapers and magazines as well as documents and news releases obtained from Toshiba. Furthermore, interviews with two managers of Toshiba's public communications office, one in charge of domestic and the other in charge of overseas public communications, were conducted in order to get Toshiba's insights and perspectives towards the crisis. The results of this study show some influential factors which arise from the diversity of infrastructures and characterize the public relations strategies of a Japanese company manufacturing its product in the United States. Moreover. the interdependency of the multinational corporations is clarified through the study. / 2031-01-01

This dissertation argues that the waters of the English Channel and North Sea constituted a coherent region of political, geographical, and human life in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It examines a large corpus of manuscript and printed maps, sea-charts, portolan charts, navigation manuals, and other works of geography to determine what the Channel was named, when, and by whom, demonstrating how nomenclature and systems of toponyms were wielded as political tools by nationalist cartographers. It traces changes in how the region was known and represented over two centuries, and how cartographic practices and sailing technology shifted along with those changes, to the benefit of domestic and overseas trade and nascent empire-building for England, France, and the Netherlands. It posits the existence of at least two ‘maritime states’ on and next to Channel waters, as the Dutch Sea Beggars and the Brittany port town of Saint-Malo sought to carve out nationhood for themselves based almost solely on the deployment of marine power. Finally, it considers how events and experiences in the Channel can inform and support current developments in the field of the ‘blue humanities.’ Many aspects of the work seek to complicate, and in some places to undermine, the common truism that ‘knowledge is power,’ asking what representations of knowledge might have produced what sort(s) of power on early modern European maps.

The birth of the SADC Tribunal marked a period of hope for human rights victims in the SADC. Initially, the Tribunal could hear commercial, labour and human rights law disputes. Individuals who no longer have hope on their national courts, could bring the complaints to the Tribunal. However, a very dramatic change took place following the challenges in the Zimbabwean expropriation of land without compensation. Following the defeat in the land grabs case, the Campbell case, instead of complying with court ruling the Zimbabwean government lobbied other SADC member states to challenge the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. This challenge to the human rights jurisdiction was calculated to render the Tribunal ineffective. The SADC states saw the Tribunal as nothing other than a monster that their sovereignty. Subsequently, the Tribunal was suspended, with the adoption of the new 2014 Protocol to the Tribunal. The new Protocol limits the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to interstate disputes only and excludes the submission of human rights complaints by individuals and entities from the region. This undoubtedly and unjustifiably deprive SADC citizens of their right of access to justice. Not only that this create a gap in the eyes of justice, it also reduces the role of the court as one of the institutions of the SADC. The Constitutional Court of South Africa has ruled that the suspension of the Tribunal and ordered the President of South Africa to withdraw from the new 2014 Protocol. This was followed by the Tanzanian High Court, which left the consideration of the signature to the new Protocol a matter of the Executive. Therefore, this writing make a case for the restoration of the SADC Tribunal. In its advocacy, this study focuses on the role played by regional courts in integration and the need of the Tribunal on human rights natters from individual complaints. / Mini Dissertation (LLM (International Trade and Investment Law in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / NRF / Centre for Human Rights / LLM (International Trade and Investment Law in Africa) / Unrestricted

The level of trade in Nigeria has been declining in recent years. This decline is attributable to the inaccessibility of trade finance particularly by Nigerian SMEs which are the principal contributors to economic activity in Nigeria. Factoring has been identified as a veritable tool for providing sustainable and accessible trade finance particularly for SMEs. Factoring is a financial service where an enterprise sells its accounts receivables (in the form of invoices) to a factor at a discount in return for immediate cash and a range of services including credit protection, accounts receivable bookkeeping and collection services. Despite the prospects factoring bears for improving trade financing in Nigeria, the awareness, availability and use of factoring as a trade financing product in Nigeria has remained very low. One key reason for the poor state of factoring in Nigeria is the absence of a robust and facilitative legal and regulatory framework for factoring in Nigeria. This research therefore analyses the legal and regulatory framework for factoring in Nigeria to assess the extent to which it facilitates and promotes the use and provision of factoring as an alternative trade financing tool in Nigeria. This paper commences by exploring the concept of factoring and examining the role of factoring as an alternative trade financing tool in Nigeria. This research analyses the legal and regulatory framework for factoring in Nigeria by examining the current framework and the proposed framework – the Nigerian Factoring Bill. This research goes further to comparatively analyze the legal and regulatory framework for factoring in Nigeria against modern best practices for factoring law and regulation to extract valuable lessons for Nigeria. Finally, this research proffers useful recommendations for improving and strengthening the Nigerian legal and regulatory framework for factoring in order to promote and facilitate the use and provision of factoring services in Nigeria. / Mini Dissertation (LLM (International Trade and Investment Law in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Centre for Human Rights / LLM (International Trade and Investment Law in Africa) / Unrestricted

Magister Legum - LLM / Globalisation has enabled the different countries of the world to be connected to each other irrespective of geographical constraints or time zones. Such connectivity has resulted in more than just an economic exchange, but also a cultural exchange in most instances.1 Due to the advancement of globalisation a new manner of life has commenced, one which has both positive changes and challenges. Globalisation has led and continues to increase the economic growth of countries and in so doing, the poverty levels of various countries has reduced.2 Despite the reduction of poverty levels, it is proposed that globalisation poses a challenge in the culmination of cultural homogeneity.3 In our rapidly developing world, there is a flow of ideas, capital, commodities, knowledge, information and beliefs.

The East African Community (EAC) allows its signatories to pursue and sign trade deals with nations outside the CU as long as the trade agreement does not violate the EAC Treaty. The EAC is one of eight regional groups that comprise the African Continental Free Trade Agreement's foundation (AfCFTA). All eyes are on the continent at the moment, as the race for Africa is reignited. This is why it is critical to establish a framework that will serve as the foundation for future discussions between AfCFTA partner states and third nations. Whereas ties within the EAC are already fragile, Kenya proceeded to negotiate an Economic Trade Agreement (EPA) with the United Kingdom at the expense of other EAC member states, a move criticised by both the African Union and other EAC members. The purpose of this study is to examine the legal framework that governs EAC partner state trade relations with countries that are not members of the EAC in order to identify any gaps in the existing laws. Additionally, this research investigates the provisions of the Kenya-UK agreement in order to determine the agreement's impact on the EAC. Finally, proposals are offered to enhance the community's current position, which is adapted to EAC's status as a customs union. The research's fundamental finding is that, while the community has regulations governing member states' trade dealings with third nations, there are loopholes in the legislation that must be remedied as soon as possible to avoid another member state from exploiting the lacuna. / Mini Dissertation (LLM (International Trade and Investment Law in Africa))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Centre for Human Rights / LLM (International Trade and Investment Law in Africa) / Unrestricted

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In December of 2003, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced the presence of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) within a cow in the state of Washington. The announcement prompted the cessation of beef imports by the largest traditional beef trading partners with the United States, resulting in immediately realized losses to the U.S. industry. This thesis evaluates the short- and long-term impact this discovery and subsequent policies had on the global beef market. We utilize market share analysis to examine the loss realized by the U.S. over a 13-year time frame, then employ a log-linear gravity model with fixed effects to quantify the changes in global export and import values and quantities using a novel bilateral trade database spanning 16 years. We find that the policies implemented immediately on discovery of the single BSE case were often slow to be rescinded even though additional related cases of BSE were not found in the United States. We also find that the removal of said policies does not guarantee full reentry of U.S. beef products, even after a lag of several years. Finally, we find that both traditional and newly emerging suppliers of beef and beef products contributed to the slow reentry of U.S. beef within critical markets. The losses and implications of the aforementioned policies detailed within this thesis suggests a different approach be undertaken by regulators should another similar threat to the U.S. food supply emerge in the future. / Master of Science