Sustainable development and free trade

Abstract

This thesis’ purpose is to illustrate the potential conflict between free trade and sustainable development. The thesis will introduce a three-dimensional theorization, which will be applied to an analysis of two court cases. Further on this thesis will outline how these conflicts could be understood within the frame of European integration. Environmental politics within the European Union (EU) had its starting point later than the economic cooperation. Growing ecological awareness together with the argument that different environmental standards in the member states could lead to trade barriers were two of the main arguments to introduce a common environmental policy within the EU. It was thought that such potential trade barriers, created by the potential conflicts between free trade and sustainable development, could make the free market unbalanced. Since the launching of the Single European Act in 1986 sustainable development objectives became more equal to other objectives such as free trade. In this study three theoretically derived dimensions will be used to analyze two court cases, which includes an interplay between sustainable development and free trade and potential conflicts between the two objectives, using Fairclough’s three dimensional method for critical discourse analysis. In the discussions the premises for European Integration based on the results will be discussed, how these potential conflicting objectives can be understood within the frame of European Integration.