Legal mechanism of the east african treaties in fighting cross border crimes, case study Gatuna border

4.7.3 Analysis of custom union Protocol

Transnational crime affects every law enforcement agency but none more so than Customs. Like many police agencies Customs administrations world-wide are being encouraged to adopt the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Customs administrators recognized very early on that Customs would be a key agency in any fight against transnational organized crime. In this regards, the objectives of the Customs Union shall be to:

(a) Further liberalize intra-regional trade in goods on the basis of mutually beneficial trade arrangements among the Partner States;

(b) Promote efficiency in production within the Community;

(c) Enhance domestic, cross border and foreign investment in the and

(d) Promote economic development and diversification in industrialization in the community^43(*).

Customs has traditionally operated at the international border and has responsibility for identifying the movement of illegal drugs, firearms, cigarettes, and people: the same commodities that are the stock in trade for transnational crime syndicates. Altogether, the relevance for a theoretical analysis of regional integration effects is limited within the trade models in the above-mentioned tradition. Yet those models are relevant for integration issues since they deal with the impact of trade liberalization on national production patterns. But within the framework it is not analyzed how changes in the macroeconomic production structure affect the regions within a country. Therefore, conclusions cannot be drawn on how trade liberalization affects border regions. It is very likely that the reallocation of production factors among sectors will have spatially differing effects within countries.

Under the provisions of Articles 2 and 5 of the Treaty, Partner States undertook to establish a Customs Union as an entry point of the Community. Its objectives included inter alia liberalisation of intra-regional trade in goods on the basis of mutually beneficial trade arrangements among Partner States; Promotion of efficiency in production within the community; enhancement of domestic^44(*), cross border and foreign investment; Promotion of economic development and diversification in industrialization.

In more recent years, international crime syndicates have shown more than a passing interest in a range of new trafficking opportunities such as commercial fraud, stolen motor vehicles, nuclear materials and waste, chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction, human body organs, pornography, works of art and money laundering. As a result of this expansion, Customs has had to these broaden its focus as it goes about the business of monitoring cargo crossing the border.

There are two significant factors in every international transaction that are important to Customs. The first is that in order to sell an illegal commodity and derive a financial benefit the goods must cross an international border. Secondly, the goods are most often transported in an identical manner to a legitimate consignment of cargo. Transnational crime affects every law enforcement agency but none more so than Customs. To be effective Customs administrations worldwide must work more closely together. Customs has not cornered the market in developing sources of information. The key to success in locating contraband is the development of cooperative information and intelligence exchanges between all law enforcement agencies.

Until recently there has been no powerful international instrument to combat all forms of transnational organized crime. This gap will now be filled by the «United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime» and its three protocols to combat illicit firearms prevent illicit trafficking in persons and the trafficking and illicit transport of migrants.

To sum up the present section, it will be important for Customs and police in the region to monitor developments regarding this Convention so that each agency can identify opportunities to get involved in the process, propose changes to national legislation and benefit from any new measures that might be adopted. To be successful this will depend on the cooperation between regional and domestic law enforcement agencies and the use of specialist teams of police and customs officers provided by the Government under the National Illicit Drug Strategy. The customs aspect deals with the examination of documents covering both imported and exported goods, the excise function deals with the collection of duties on both locally manufactured and imported goods.

* ⁴³ Art 3 of the Protocol on establishment of Custom Union

* ⁴⁴ Hon. Beatrice B. KIRASO, Deputy Secretary General East African Community at the EAC Peace and Security Conference, EAC integration process and the enabling peace and security architecture, Kampala, Uganda, 5^th October 2009