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...

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...

Many legal advisers, scientists and practitioners know since many years, that the Common External Tariff (CET) of the European Community (EC) is being applied non-uniform from the different national customs services and that the economic operators are using this systematic fault of the EC for...

New gaps are emerging worldwide in all customs tariffs that are using the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (Harmonized System Convention) following the technical revision as of 1 January 2007. Thirty-four headings are not in use for the next four to five years. This...

The fundamental rules for the classification of goods into a customs tariff which is complying to the Harmonized System for the description and coding of goods (HS) are according to general rule 1 solely the six general rules of classification, the terms of headings and the notes (and according...

From 1948 to 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Secretariat received 124 indications of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) relating to the trade in goods, and since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, more than 240 additional RTAs (covering trade in...

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...