The World Customs Organization (Organisation Mondiale des Dounaes) is an intergovernmental organization of more than 170 Member States that was founded as European Customs Cooperation Council in 1952. This paper gives a brief overview of its history and legal milestones.

The Nomenclature that is governed by the Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (Harmonized System Convention, Brussels, 14 June 1983) has resulted in an adjustment of many nomenclatures used worldwide for statistical and customs classifi cation because...

Some scientists and authorities are arguing that tariffs are growing more and more unimportant since eight GATT/WTO-Tariff-Rounds have resulted in tremendous reductions of the original tariff rates in the late 1940ies. The Non-Tariff-Measures however are gaining more importance. A...

The Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) status has been introduced by the World Customs Organization (WCO) and its Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade (SAFE) in order to combat terrorism in trade. This article shows the distribution of the AEO programmes in the world.

More and more countries and economic regions are applying the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (Harmonized System Convention). This paper examines in the update 2012 the new countries which are using the worldwide uniform language of trade.

More countries and economic regions are applying the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (Harmonized System Convention). Here is an overview for 2014 of the new countries which are using the worldwide uniform language of trade now and will apply the tariff scheme from 2015.

The customs sanctions of the EU-27 are not harmonized - the sanctioning of customs offences is still the task of the twenty-seven Member States and their national legislation. The US has attacked the purely national customs sanctions of the EU as break of the WTO rules in the WTO Dispute...

More and more countries and economic regions are applying the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (Harmonized System Convention). This paper examines, in the update 2009, the new countries which are using the worldwide uniform language of trade since 2007 and 2008 and which are...

The World Customs Organization (WCO, Organization Mondiale des Dounaes, OMD) is an intergovernmental organization of more than 170 Member States. It is of tremendous importance for the simplification of international trade and customs procedures; however, its modes of action and decision-making...