The modern trends of the foreign trade policy implementation: implications for customs regulations

Abstract

The paper analyses basic transformation tendencies in the international trade policy standards generated within frameworks of global and regional institution and their influence upon customs and border formalities. The transformation of standards is also supplemented with crucial changes in a rule-making process, that conventionally has been an exclusive competence of national states. That rule-making changes are characterized by transferring the significant amount of competence from the national states to the global and supranational level, as well as by introduction new types of rule-making actors (both public and private) and new types of law sources. This urges us to apply to the analyses the concepts of global governance, transnational law and global administrative law, which focus on the above-mentioned transformations in the field. Customs authorities now are experiencing the transition of their initial mission from merely revenue collectors to actors responsible for extensive range of tasks, including safety and security issues, trade facilitation, joint border management, etc. All these tasks should be performed at the high level of harmonisation, unification and standardization with recognised international and regional rules and regulations. Due to the specifics of the new mission of customs authorities, the paper primary focuses on two relatively new tasks of security and trade facilitation. And also paper discuses two basic modern instruments to implement such tasks – the operation of Single Window for international trade and the application of good governance principles to customs routine operations. The essential point is that two instruments are not focused merely on improving the way customs and border formalities are performed by authorities, but also starve the whole system of border management into comprehensive reform of both interagency and intra-agency procedures and operations. The Single Window facility provides such reform through joint application of information technology based on internationally approved standards. The WTO rules for good governance for application of customs legislation in fact demands from member states to share common values and principles, originally emerged within legal systems of western developed countries.