Customs

This book describes how Customs have searched and found ultimately a proper balance between seemingly contradicting tasks: on the one hand stopping international trade at the border to collect taxes and protect society’s safety and security, on the other hand minimizing logistic delays and facilitating legitimate trade as much as possible. Theories on law enforcement, enriched with best practices from the Netherlands Customs Administration over the past decades, ideas on public - private partnership, on the necessity of continuous training and education of customs professionals, on the need of cooperation with other government agencies and scientific institutes when smartening enforcement while minimizing logistic delays – they all show how Customs nowadays are more and more able to look ‘inside anywhere’ and collect ‘insights everywhere’.

The book provides for a unique glance into the world of Customs, being of an utmost value for customs and trade compliance professionals both in the public and the private sector all over the world. And for those who prefer to look forward, this book describes how a possible future of the world of Customs and its procedures can look like on the longer term, with the application of technology innovations as well as an upgrade of the current legal system of Customs’ supervision to ‘Customs’ Supervision 2.0’.