International trade, global supply chains and compliance

International supply chains require the movement of goods across borders. While moving goods internationally is already operationally complex, the regulatory requirements that need to be met complicate this further. In this chapter, we explain how and why international regulatory issues enter the supply chain. At the basic level, we discuss in some detail concepts such as arm’s length trading, origin, customs declaration and the role of trade agreements. We then introduce, as part of the advanced level, the basic principles of customs supervision in supply chains. Most customs regulations contain principles that are designed to facilitate international business and allow for the postponement of duty and tax payment to the right time and place. In the supply chain literature, these concepts are virtually unknown, but they play an important role in the design of international supply chains in practice. We also introduce a new vision on customs enforcement that was developed as a spin off of several European research projects. In this vision, so-called trusted tradelanes are introduced as the next step in supply chain compliance. We end with the state of the art discussion on the design of trusted tradelanes and the necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be met to achieve this trusted tradelane status. Throughout the chapter, we have included case studies from practice to illustrate specific insights, or offer a basis for further discussion.