International Customs Cooperation

Customs cooperation serves as a means of building competencies of national customs authorities. For example, a national customs administration could not perform auditing of the economic/commercial activities of an enterprise having no legal ground and powers to this effect. However, invoking agreements on customs cooperation and mutual assistance it can perform this action indirectly and obtain absolutely legal audit report, i.e. apply to the customs authorities of the other state with the request to carry out such audit and inform on the results thereof.

Usually, customs mutual assistance and cooperation are covered by bilateral or multilateral agreements relating to customs mutual assistance, and, additionally, by regulations the WCO and WTO, bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as multilateral agreements/ conventions of international organizations. According to the legislation type, customs mutual assistance and cooperation fall into three groups:

1. Mutual assistance and cooperation in the field of customs activity;

2. Mutual assistance and cooperation in disclosing and investigating

administrative breaches;

3. Mutual assistance and cooperation in investigating criminal offences.

Customs authorities do not merely ensure the prevention of operations in breach of customs legislation, but also carry responsibility for the same; therefore, mutual assistance and cooperation do not only contribute to investigations ensuring appropriate application of legislation, but also facilitate the exchange of information on advanced customs experience, tendencies and trends of identified violations. In this way, international cooperation ensures the necessary information flows for risk management. The most innovative complex measure of prevention is risk analysis, which, apart from the identification of riskiest fields and proper allocation of available recourses, enables the establishment and prevention of breaches committed. . Information obtained through customs mutual assistance constitutes an additional knowledge resource, and sometimes even a very specific and unique knowledge flow, the only one serving as the basis for risk analysis, since national data does not suffice for identifying threats and potential breaches.

Methods of cooperation and mutual assistance fall under the following groups:

– assistance provision in a customary way or by use of material documents;

– assistance provision by electronic means.

Regulation of cooperation between customs administrations is quite sufficient; there is a balance between available rights and duties upon prevention of breaches of customs law and timely information supply. National customs authorities are encouraged to exchange important information on their own initiative. For the purposes of an effective customs work customs administrations have concluded many agreements in the area of customs cooperation and mutual assistance. This is a form of development of cooperation, which is further successfully applied. Customs officers responsible for international cooperation and mutual assistance have to deal with a great variety of legal acts. Mistakes they make can result in disastrous consequences both on domestic and national state level.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1109