Global trade is increasingly becoming more digitalised. A wide range of parties to a trade transaction now rely on technologies that enable commerce at a speed, scale and efficiency that was unimaginable just a few decades ago.
Unfortunately, many customs administrations around the world are still in the infancy of adopting such technologies and processes. Often, customs procedures still rely on hard-copy paper documents, manual and inefficient processes, and other relics of a bygone era ill-suited for trade in the 21st century.
The ICC has announced that it believes that the Joint Statement Initiative on E-commerce (JSI) offers an opportunity to build on existing trade disciplines and global best practices in order to fully realise the benefits of digitalisation and paperless trade.
The ICC brief that can be found here explores a number of model provisions that could usefully form part of a new plurilateral agreement on the trade-related aspects of e-commerce.