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.

WORKING ON THE TEXT

Ex.1. SKIMMING:

a. Read the headline and the first sentence of each paragraph of the text. Pair up to discuss the topic of the article.

b. Read the first paragraph and the last paragraph of the text. Then work in pairs to discuss the contents of the piece.

c. Read the text. Get into pairs to discuss the contents of the piece.

Ex.2. SCANNING:

a. While scanning the text find the answers for content-specific questions given by the teacher.

b. While scanning the text pick out the sentences containing the key words given by the teacher.

Ex.3. READING: Read and translate the text “International Customs Co-operation”.

Ex.4. GLOSSARY: Make a glossary of words and expressions used in the text.

Ex.5. VOCABULARY EXTENSION: Choose the words from the text. Use a dictionary or Google’s search field (or another search engine) to build up more associations / collocations with each word.

Ex.6. INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMS CO-OPERATION BRAINSTORM:

Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the words ‘International Customs Co-operation’. Share your words with your partner / group and talk about them.

Ex.7. 2-MINUTE DEBATES: Students face each other in pairs and engage in the following 2-minute debates. The subject is “International Customs Co-operation”.

Ex.8. CHAT: Talk in pairs or groups about the “International Customs Co-operation”.

Ex.9. WRITING: Write a letter to the FCS authority. Give your proposals on the International Customs Co-operation development.

GRAMMAR REVISION