CUSTOMS UNION IN COMPARATIVE PRACTICE

Abstract

In the context of historical, economic and contemporary international legal sources, it is revealed that the elements covered by the concept of customs union differ. As a consequence of the conceptual diversity and legal flexibility of the laws of the World Trade Organization - WTO, in practice there is a great diversity of customs union designs - CU. Different CUs approach key design issues and tensions, from on the Preferential Trade Agreement - PTA negotiations to regulating the origin of goods, in different ways. Common to all conceptualizations around CUs is a concern about state sovereignty that affects how CUs are designed and how they operate. Such concerns usually lead to the formation of CUs that are not in line with the idea of a “perfect customs union”. Even if there is no perfect CU, poor performance occurs especially when the relationship between the internal and external aspects of the CU is not synchronized.