The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe is one of the five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was established in order to promote economic cooperation and integration among its member states.
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs has been considered as the fiscal subject that charges customs duties and other taxes on import and export. In recent decades, the views on the functions of customs have considerably expanded and now covers three basic issues: taxation, security, and trade facilitation.
The World Customs Organization (WCO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. The WCO works on customs-related matters including the development of international conventions, instruments, and tools on topics such as commodity classification, valuation, rules of origin, collection of customs revenue, supply chain security, international trade facilitation, customs enforcement activities, combating counterfeiting in support of intellectual property rights (IPR), illegal drug enforcement, combating counterfeiting of medicinal drugs, illegal weapons trading, integrity promotion, and delivering sustainable capacity building to assist with customs reforms and modernization. The WCO maintains the international Harmonized System (HS) goods nomenclature, and administers the technical aspects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements on Customs Valuation and Rules of Origin.
UN/CEFACT is the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business. It was established as an intergovernmental body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 1996 and evolved from UNECE's long tradition of work in trade facilitation which began in 1957.
An invoice, bill or tab is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction and indicating the products, quantities, and agreed-upon prices for products or services the seller had provided the buyer.
The Carnet de Passages en Douane is a customs document that identifies a traveller's motor vehicle or other valuable equipment or baggage. It is required in order to take a motor vehicle into a significant number of countries around the world. The CPD system is managed by the Federation Internationale de l'automobile, duly mandated by the World customs organization and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
The CMR Convention is a United Nations convention that was signed in Geneva on 19 May 1956. It relates to various legal issues concerning transportation of cargo by road. It has been ratified by the majority of European states. As of January 2022, it has been ratified by 58 states.
The Convention on Road Traffic, commonly known as the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, is an international treaty designed to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety by establishing standard traffic rules among the contracting parties. The convention was agreed upon at the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Conference on Road Traffic and concluded in Vienna on 8 November 1968. This conference also produced the Convention on Road Signs and Signals. The convention had amendments on 3 September 1993 and 28 March 2006. There is a European Agreement supplementing the Convention on Road Traffic (1968), which was concluded in Geneva on 1 May 1971.
The Council of Arab Economic Unity (CAEU) was founded by Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen on May 30, 1964, following an agreement in 1957 by the Economic Council of the Arab League.
Trade facilitation looks at how procedures and controls governing the movement of goods across national borders can be improved to reduce associated cost burdens and maximise efficiency while safeguarding legitimate regulatory objectives. Business costs may be a direct function of collecting information and submitting declarations or an indirect consequence of border checks in the form of delays and associated time penalties, forgone business opportunities and reduced competitiveness.
The single-window system or single-window concept is a trade facilitation concept which allows an international (cross-border) trader to submit information to a single agency, rather than having to deal with multiple agencies in multiple locations to obtain the necessary papers, permits, and clearances to complete their import or export processes. There is an obvious time saving benefit to the single window system. The concept is recognised by organisations such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and its Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT), World Customs Organization (WCO), the United Nations Network of Experts for Paperless Trade and Transport in Asia and the Pacific (UNNExT), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
The ATA Carnet, often referred to as the "Passport for goods", is an international customs document that permits the tax-free and duty-free temporary export and import of nonperishable goods for up to one year. It consists of unified customs declaration forms which are prepared ready to use at every border crossing point. It is a globally accepted guarantee for customs duties and taxes which can replace the security deposit required by each customs authority. It can be used in multiple countries in multiple trips up to its one-year validity. The acronym ATA is a combination of French and English terms "Admission Temporaire/Temporary Admission". The ATA carnet is now the document most widely used by the business community for international operations involving temporary admission of goods.
The EUR.1 movement certificate is a form used in international commodity traffic. The EUR.1 is most importantly recognized as a certificate of origin in the external trade in legal sense, especially within the framework of several bi- and multilateral agreements of the Pan-European preference system.
The European Union Customs Union (EUCU), formally known as the Community Customs Union, is a customs union which consists of all the member states of the European Union (EU), Monaco, and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Some detached territories of EU states do not participate in the customs union, usually as a result of their geographic separation. In addition to the EUCU, the EU is in customs unions with Andorra, San Marino and Turkey, through separate bilateral agreements.
The International Road Transport Union (IRU) is a global road transport organization, which upholds the interests of bus, coach, taxi and truck operators to ensure economic growth and prosperity via sustainable mobility of people and goods by road transport.
The Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail, is an intergovernmental organisation that governs international rail transport. As of 2019, 51 European, African, and Near Eastern states are members of OTIF. M. Wolfgang Küpper has been the Secretary general since April 2019.
Lapis Lazuli is an international transit route opened in 2018 linking Afghanistan to Turkey via Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
The United Kingdom–Crown Dependencies Customs Union or customs arrangements with the Crown Dependencies is a customs union that covers the British Islands. It eliminates all tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade between those islands, and creates a common external tariff with other countries.
The Armenian Customs Service is a subsidiary department of the State Revenue Committee responsible for customs services on behalf of the Armenian government, headquartered in Yerevan.
