Harmonized Tariff System Codes Act

[Duxburian Union]

Harmonized Tariff System Codes Act

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Written by Councillor-General Wesley Greene

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Preamble:
This Act establishes a standardized, numerical product classification system to faciliate international trade.

This act does not:
-Establish or mandate any trade policies or trade zones
-Change the status of any national tariffs, taxes, duties, or other fees.
-Modify the legal or illegal status of any goods
-Require completely replacing national classification systems

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Section I: Harmonized Tariff System Codes

1. All types of goods for import and/or export from European member-states shall be classified on a Master Schedule of Goods (MSG), sorted into chapters, sections, and sub-sections.
2. Each good shall be assigned a universal 6 digit Harmonized System (HS) code number.
3. Each HS code number shall consist of 2 digits denoting its chapter, 2 digits denoting its section, and 2 digits denoting its sub-section.
   a. Member States may append additional digits to HS code numbers for internal purposes.
   b. Member States may add their own existing national classification code numbers into the MSG, to be used, referenced, and generated alongside HS code numbers.
4. It may be possible for a single type of good to have multiple valid HS code number options.
   a. Member States shall decide how multiple valid matches are to be treated within their jurisdictions.
   b. Member States shall decide how mixed derivative goods, unclassified goods, and other special/unusual circumstances are to be treated within their jurisdictions.

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Section II: European Trade Standards Organization

1. This act creates the European Trade Standards Organization (ETSO) for the purposes of operating the Harmonized Tariff System Code system. The ETSO shall:
   a. Manage HS code numbers classifications and the Master Schedule of Goods.
   b. Develop, maintain, update, host, and disseminate software and hardware for manual and automated uses of HS code numbers.
   c. Assist, educate, and train system users.
   c. Arbitrate user disputes involving HS code number classifications.

2. The European Trade Standards Organization shall be comprised of:
   a. Executive staff, appointed by the European Internal Affairs Commissioner (IAC).
   b. Classification staff, whom must be qualified legal experts
   c. Programming staff, whom must be qualified technical experts
   d. Arbitration staff, whom must be qualified legal experts

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Section III: Accessibility

1. Harmonized System code numbers shall be encodable and decodable as bar codes, QR codes, and other standard formats.
   a. Encoding and decoding devices shall support vision-impaired and hearing-impaired users
   b. Member States may use their own pre-existing equipment if it can support encoding/decoding the HS code numbers.
2. The Master Schedule of Goods and HS code numbers shall be uploadable/downloadable and/or importable/exportable to/from national customs and border control systems, shipping software, shipping manifests, tax software, and other systems of trade, using manual and automated methods.
3. HS code numbers shall be seamlessly convertable to and from major national languages and numeric systems, by automated and electronic methods where feasible.
4. The MSG, HS code numbers, and associated software shall be provided to users free of charge.

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Section IV: Implementation

1. All Member States of the European Union are required to harmonize their national law(s) with this act within 1 year from its approval by the European Council.

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Members of the European Council, I come before you today with my vision for a harmonized tariff code system that standardizes how we classify goods in the EU. Like the European Highway Numbering Act, this system is designed to be minimally intrusive, making it easier to trade without stepping on any nation's sovereignty to regulate their own imports and exports. Having standardized codes helps shippers, customs agents, brokers, and all manner of other trading partners quickly identify what kind of goods they are dealing with, so they can apply the correct tariffs, taxes, duties, or lack thereof on the goods.

Ideally, this system could be so seamless that local importers and exporters don't even have to know that they are generating European standard codes when they label goods. I envision a shipper typing the manifest in their own native language, even their own native numeric system, as software automatically converts it into European standards for customs inspectors. Likewise, the end party need not understand the label, only scan it to convert the information to their national standards in their own language. When it comes to the desire for standards and sovereignty, this implementation lets us have our proverbial cake and eat it, too.

This is a very well-thought out system that took a lot of constitutent feedback to create. However, there could always be some concern I may have overlooked, so please let me know what you think!

Wesley Greene
Councillor-General of the Duxburian Union

[Istkalen]

Debate will begin NOW and continue until 23:59 GMT on 8 January 2023.

Iras Tilkanas
Council Speaker and Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen

[Yosai]

I do like this act in principle. My only real question is over overlapping classification of goods. But I am guessing that such a concern would need to be put forth to this ESTO body correct?

Izumi Miwako
Councillor of the Federal Republic of Yosai

[BrumBrum]

I support this act and I can honestly see Duchies just using the HS codes only since it is logical for Europe to have one code. I would like to praise the right honourable Councillor Greene for this contribution.I would like to ask however how would we ensure any disabiity coding meets national standards and doesn't enforce a european standard on them, Duchies wouldn't mind but some would.

James Mizrachi-Roscoe, Councillor for United Duchies

[California]

This is so refreshing.

[Czech Slavia]

I thank Councillor Greene for introducing this Act to us and like my colleagues I agree with the principle of the act. Nevertheless I have few comments. Since the naming of the Executive staff is left to the appointment of the Internal Affairs Commissioner, as the Act currently stand, the number of the Executive staff would be solely up to the IAC to determine. Wouldn't it thus be beneficial for the act to state the number of the Executive staff and provide more stability to the system? Furthermore, shouldn't the candidates for the position be nominated by the member states to the IAC? Are they supposed to be appointed for life? And what about the conditions of their dismissal? The Act in its current form does not cover these issues.

Regarding Section III. Article 4. they shall be provided by whom? The Act does not specify which could lead to confusion.

Lastly, and this is purely a technical point, Section IV. mentions Member Nations, while the rest of the act is mentioning Member States, usage of two terms for one thing should be avoided, especially if it concerns a single legislation. And while in the past some acts have used the term Member Nation, it is preferred to use one term for one thing. The term used in the Constitution of the European Union is "Member States", so I suggest sticking to that term where possible.

For the rest of the issues I will wait for further comments by Councillor Greene but to address this small, technical issue I so far propose the following amendment,

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Amendment I

Section I: Harmonized Tariff System Codes

1. All types of goods for import and/or export from European member-states Member States shall be classified on a Master Schedule of Goods (MSG), sorted into chapters, sections, and sub-sections.
2. Each good shall be assigned a universal 6 digit Harmonized System (HS) code number.
3. Each HS code number shall consist of 2 digits denoting its chapter, 2 digits denoting its section, and 2 digits denoting its sub-section.
   a. Member -states States may append additional digits to HS code numbers for internal purposes.
   b. Member -states States may add their own existing national classification code numbers into the MSG, to be used, referenced, and generated alongside HS code numbers.
4. It may be possible for a single type of good to have multiple valid HS code number options.
   a. Member -states States shall decide how multiple valid matches are to be treated within their jurisdictions.
   b. Member -states States shall decide how mixed derivative goods, unclassified goods, and other special/unusual circumstances are to be treated within their jurisdictions.

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Section III: Accessibility

1. Harmonized System code numbers shall be encodable and decodable as bar codes, QR codes, and other standard formats.
   a. Encoding and decoding devices shall support vision-impaired and hearing-impaired users
   b. Member -states States may use their own pre-existing equipment if it can support encoding/decoding the HS code numbers.

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Section IV: Implementation

1. All member nations Member States of the European Union are required to harmonize their national law(s) with this act within 1 year from its approval by the European Council.

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Sofie Čikarová
Councillor for Czech Slavia

[BrumBrum]

Looking at the act there may be an issue with the act in terms of country number codes being different in each nation to standardise the numbering for country codes.
Section I: Harmonized Tariff System Codes

1.All types of goods for import and/or export from European member-states shall be classified on a Master Schedule of Goods (MSG), sorted into chapters, sections, and sub-sections.
2.Each good shall be assigned a universal 6 8 digit Harmonized System (HS) code number.
3.Each HS code number shall consist of 2 digits denoting nation of origin or manufacture, 2 digits denoting its chapter, 2 digits denoting its section and 2 digits denoting its sub-section.
a. Member-states may append additional digits to HS code numbers for internal purposes.
b. Member-states may add their own existing national classification code numbers into the MSG, to be used, referenced, and generated alongside HS code numbers.

Standardising country of origin codes should make it easier for trading across borders purposes. I hope people can see this a technical detail and not introducing a duchieism to this act.I do not intend to force all of EU onto Duchies standards and be seen as bossing about the EU nations onto our standards.

James Mizrachi-Roscoe, Councillor for United Duchies

[Duxburian Union]

Councillor Miwako, yes, when classifications overlap, that would be arbitrated with the ETSO. The master schedule is really just a big database with the HS codes as primary keys, so a lot of data can be associated with them, including multiple national codes. Some conflicts involving member states might not need arbitration, instructions on how they handle various code situations could be added to the code entry itself.

Councillor James Mizrachi-Roscoe, since national standards for accessibility can vary wildly, I intentionally made that section about outcomes rather than processes. The text doesn't care how a member state makes the things accessible as long as they do. Whether your own implementation complies is up to your own courts. As for moving to 8 digits over 6, I don't really see a need since the origin of goods is not always a clear-cut decision and isn't necessary for every single good. Imagine having a giant cargo ship enter a port - its manifest can tell you where all of its goods came from. There could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of items on that ship - each one needing to include origin would just be a waste of time.

Councillor Čikarová, I'm hesitant to declare a hard count of executive staff because it could end up being too many or too little people. International trade gets complicated in a hurry and the body would have a better understanding of its needs than I ever could. As far as how staff end up there, the IAC is envisioned to fill out the executive ranks with appointments and then they hire the rest of the team from there. I come from a common law country where once you vest appointment authority in a person, they are naturally understood to also have the power to modify and terminate such employment, it need not be stated. The IAC would decide when executives should be replaced and country of origin was not a consideration to me since it's not a political/representative institution, but a meritocratic one. If you still want to make an amendment specifying term limits and national representation, I wouldn't oppose it though.

In Section III.4, it's implied that since those resources are all developed and maintained by the ETSO, the ETSO would be providing them.

My apologizies for the lack of consistency in Section IV, that was lifted off a previous act late at night and not checked for consistency. They should all be member states, although I don't understand the difference between having a hyphen or not. That's something I'm unfamiliar with as English is not my native language.

Wesley Greene
Councillor-General of the Duxburian Union

[BrumBrum]

I would like to WITHDRAW my amendment as it appears to be an unnecessary Duchieism which is not needed. I am willing to listen to councillors and not waste their time. I do not intend to introduce Duchieisms against other member states wishes to acts. I appologise for introducing a possibly annoying Duchieism to the process.

James Mizrachi-Roscoe, Councillor for United Duchies

[Istkalen]

Debate has ended. One amendment has been proposed, as follows:

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Amendment I

Section I: Harmonized Tariff System Codes

1. All types of goods for import and/or export from European member-states Member States shall be classified on a Master Schedule of Goods (MSG), sorted into chapters, sections, and sub-sections.
2. Each good shall be assigned a universal 6 digit Harmonized System (HS) code number.
3. Each HS code number shall consist of 2 digits denoting its chapter, 2 digits denoting its section, and 2 digits denoting its sub-section.
   a. Member -states States may append additional digits to HS code numbers for internal purposes.
   b. Member -states States may add their own existing national classification code numbers into the MSG, to be used, referenced, and generated alongside HS code numbers.
4. It may be possible for a single type of good to have multiple valid HS code number options.
   a. Member -states States shall decide how multiple valid matches are to be treated within their jurisdictions.
   b. Member -states States shall decide how mixed derivative goods, unclassified goods, and other special/unusual circumstances are to be treated within their jurisdictions.

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Section III: Accessibility

1. Harmonized System code numbers shall be encodable and decodable as bar codes, QR codes, and other standard formats.
   a. Encoding and decoding devices shall support vision-impaired and hearing-impaired users
   b. Member -states States may use their own pre-existing equipment if it can support encoding/decoding the HS code numbers.

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Section IV: Implementation

1. All member nations Member States of the European Union are required to harmonize their national law(s) with this act within 1 year from its approval by the European Council.

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Voting will begin now and continue until 23:59 GMT on 14 January 2023.

Iras Tilkanas
Council Speaker and Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen

[Spain]

I vote FOR the Amendment.

Donald Tusk
Councillor for Spain

[BrumBrum]

On behalf o United Duchies I vote FOR the amendment

James Mizrachi-Roscoe, Councillor for United Duchies

[Elthize]

Representing The State of Elthize, I ABSTAIN from voting for the amendment.

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Liam Zachary
Councillor for The State of Elthize

[California]

On behalf of The United Kingdom, I vote FOR the amendment.

The Rt. Hon. Ed Miliband

[Leagio]

On behalf of the Commonwealth of Leagio, I vote FOR the Amendment.

Lionel Morel
EU Councilor for Leagio

[Istkalen]

Voting on amendments has ended.

With 4 votes FOR, the amendment has passed.

Final voting begins NOW and will continue until 23:59 GMT on 22 January 2023.

Iras Tilkanas
Council Speaker and Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen

[California]

On behalf of The United Kingdom, I vote FOR this act.

[BrumBrum]

On behalf of United Duchies I vote FOR this act
James Mizrachi-Roscoe Councillor for United Duchies

[Duxburian Union]

On behalf of the Union of Duxburian Dominions, I vote FOR the act.

Wesley Greene
Councillor-General of the Duxburian Union

[Elthize]

Representing The State of Elthize, I vote FOR this act.

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Liam Zachary
Councillor for The State of Elthize