Articles

Someone recently asked me what are the current top challenges for customs in Europe. The article is an attempt to summarise the answer to this question. These are the five issues that, in my … opinion, are likely to impact the customs industry in the upcoming months and years. Some are more across-the-board and some are a bit more niche and local. The article comes from the author’s personal experience of working in the industry and across the private and public sectors and is therefore a personal perspective. By no means an exhaustive list.

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has recently, after several pilots (amongst others in the Netherlands), launched an online tool for the verification of preferential origin statements. … The tool is named Genesis, after the ancient Greek word for origin, which is also the name of the first book of the Holy Bible and one of the world’s most popular progressive rock bands. So the obvious questions are: how progressive is this tool and does it rock?

On May 30, 2024, the Advocate General (AG) of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a very interesting opinion in the case Harley-Davidson v. Commission (C-297/23 P). This … case, currently awaiting a final decision by the CJEU, holds substantial implications for importers needing to determine the non-preferential origin of goods within the EU.

In 2023, Côte d’Ivoire introduced a new and modern system of advance customs rulings. This development followed two workshops organised in Côte d’Ivoire in May 2023 with the German Alliance for … Trade Facilitation and under the aegis of the EU-WCO Programme for the Harmonized System in Africa funded by the EU. The workshops were part of a wider capacity-building programme to support Côte d’Ivoire in meeting its WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement obligations - in particular, Article 3 of the TFA which requires signatory parties to provide an option to apply advance rulings on origin and classification.

Recently, trade relations between Türkiye and Israel have been shaky. Although Türkiye and Israel have had a free trade agreement for many years, Türkiye announced that it would stop all trade … with Israel, to which Israel responded that it intended to abolish the free trade agreement and also impose additional 100% tariffs on imports from Türkiye. This crisis will not only affect the two parties, but possibly also EU traders.

The new, revised Pan European Mediterranean (PEM) rules of origin will enter into force on 1 January 2025 for all parties of the PEM Convention. Traders importing and exporting within the PEM … origin cumulation zone will be able to use the new, more business-friendly and flexible rules. Even when trading with countries that have not opted to use transitional rules.

The language of sustainable development legislation and the language of the legislation of origin are completely different; it is necessary to find a lingua franca for these areas to better understand … and implement the requirements. On the other hand, harmonisation of rules of origin at a global level is essential to address the challenges faced by importers - the need for harmonisation of these rules has never been greater. These and many other views were exchanged at the 20th Authors' Meeting. We invite you to read an overview.

The EU has concluded more than 40 free trade agreements (FTAs) with around 80 countries, which supposedly bring significant benefits for trade with partner countries. But is this really the case, … i.e. is the EU fully utilising these benefits? This article attempts to assess the application of EU FTAs by analysing the flow of goods in and out of the main trading partners. The author looks at how import and export volumes and geography depend on the existence of preferential agreements.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), approved in 2012 by the African Union’s (AU) 18th Ordinary Session of Assembly of Heads of State and Government, is one of the Flagship Projects … of the AU’s Agenda 2063. The Action Plan for Boosting intra-African trade has a strong focus on accelerating intra-African trade and boosting Africa’s trading position in the global market, in particular through implementation of trade facilitation standards and tools. We provide a brief overview of AfCFTA rules of origin.

Editors' note: The recent 20th Authors' Meeting dealt with issues of origin for customs purposes. At this meeting, the author presented two Israeli court cases - one concerning an unauthorised … person signing the certificate of preferential origin and the other concerning whether pistachios originated in Iran or Turkey (non-preferential origin for the application of prohibitions). The cases are not necessarily new, but they deal with relevant questions: What happens if the proof of preferential origin is signed by an unauthorised person? Can the authorisation be granted retrospectively? Is the 'statistical and reasonableness check' sufficient for customs to reject the declared non-preferential origin of the goods?

In 2022, the WCO Secretariat sent a questionnaire to the Organization’s Members to gather information on certification of origin processes and the digitalization of the certificate of origin … (CO). Eighty-four Customs administrations responded, and a Study on the Digitalization of the Certificate of Origin, containing an analysis of the information received, was published in December 2023.

The Study provides a comparative analysis of origin provisions in a region which has the most numerous and complex overlapping trade regimes of the entire African continent.

The World Customs Organization has published a comprehensive study on the digitalisation of the Certificate of Origin (CO). This article provides a short summary of the existing CO issues and … suggests some solutions that could help achieve the long-term digitalisation goals – such as the framework for trusted digital signatures currently used in the EU.

Legal clarity and certainty are what compliant companies need in order to be able to concentrate on their core activities. Legislators are trying to fulfil this need by, for example, introducing … additional legislation such as binding information (BI) decisions. Frustratingly, the more legislation, the less clarity. BI decisions issued by customs authorities can be overturned by the European Commission (e.g. Harley-Davidson case), or the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) can rule in a dispute over a BI decision that the European Commission has exceeded its powers when adopting delegated legislation, which raises the question of how binding the rules laid down in the delegated regulations, e.g. the UCC Delegated Act, are. On the latter, we provide a brief overview of a recent CJEU judgement on the rules of non-preferential origin.

The fundamental premise of these notes is that the absence of any harmonization for rules of non-preferential rules of origin is increasingly and very rapidly creating additional discriminatory … opportunities to expand and extend the scope and impact of a wide range of trade policies and trade restrictions. A brief analysis will provide a few examples of this phenomena, including an examination of its probable causes, and possible approaches to mitigate related barriers to international trade. The final notes will examine potential information and data contradictions in the current efforts to control so-called 'negative externalities' by way of 'deep origin' requirements, such as forced labour and carbon measures, at the border.

In a world where international trade is the lifeblood of economies, ensuring the smooth flow of goods across borders while maintaining rigorous controls is a challenging balancing act. Dubai, … one of the world’s busiest trade hubs, is meeting this challenge head-on by investing in advance technology and embracing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance trade facilitation and border control. These efforts are poised not only to bolster Dubai’s position as a global trade and tourist hub, but also to set new standards for Customs operations and services worldwide, which has reflected positively on Dubai Customs client happiness index reaching a score of 98% for smart and electronic services. Some of the projects developed using AI are presented below.