Editorial

Few instruments have done more for the standing of Customs as a profession than the World Customs Organization (WCO) Professional Standards 2019 (the Standards; WCO, 2019). Developed under the Partnership in Customs Academic Research and Development (PICARD) Programme and launched as the Professional Standards for Customs Operational and Senior Managers in 2008, then revised in 2019, they gave the membership something it had never previously had: an agreed statement of what a customs manager should be able to do, at both a strategic and operational level. From that single document flows the recognition of university programs, the design of in-house training, the drafting of job profiles, and a shared professional vocabulary that stretches from Brussels to the smallest border post. It is a considerable achievement, and it has held up well, partly because its authors saw where the profession was heading and strengthened the emphasis on emerging technologies well beyond that of the 2008 edition.

What has changed since 2019 is not the quality of the Standards but the quality of the evidence available to inform them. In 2022 the WCO published, jointly with the World Trade Organization (WTO), its Study Report on Disruptive Technologies (the Study Report; WCO and WTO, 2022b), a substantial study, and a notably practical one. It examines seven technologies: blockchain and distributed ledgers, the internet of things, big data and artificial intelligence, biometrics, drones, virtual and augmented reality, and 3D printing. It draws on the 2021 WCO Annual Consolidated Survey (WCO and WTO, 2022a) and on the implementation experience of members, and it identifies which of these technologies are already reshaping customs work rather than merely promising to do so. The WCO has given itself, and its members, a solid basis for thinking about what comes next.

The obvious step now is to bring that evidence into the Standards. The 2019 edition was written before the joint study existed. The opportunity now is to write the next edition with it in hand.

Four things would follow naturally from such an exercise. The first is simply naming the technologies, which the Study Report has already done. A standard that referred to them by name would give program designers and training managers something concrete to build a curriculum around, so that what the WCO has learned shapes what its managers are taught.

The second is lifting the level of the technology competencies within the Standards. The technology provisions ask managers mainly to understand and to be aware, which was a reasonable restraint in 2019. The technologies will keep changing, but the capabilities they call for are durable enough to build a standard around, and the Study Report shows what they are. On that footing the Standards should ask managers to do more than simply know that a particular technology exists, as they do for every other competency.

The third is everyday data capability. The Study Report calls for a move away from transaction-driven processes towards a focus on the availability of data. The Standards already handle the stewardship of data well, in terms of retention, protection and lawful sharing. Adding the working skills that sit alongside stewardship, such as interrogating a dataset, judging the quality of an analytical product, and querying a result that looks wrong, would build naturally on that foundation.

The fourth is the governance of automated decision-making. Customs and trade increasingly rely on automated support for classification, valuation and risk profiling. The Study Report sets out what such systems require: transparency about how decisions are reached, validation of the systems, sound data and mechanisms to challenge the result. The Standards address the human dimension of integrity comprehensively, in the tradition of the Arusha Declaration. Extending that same thinking to decisions taken with machine assistance would be a natural continuation of the Standards’ strongest theme, and would put Customs among the first to answer a question every government now faces.

One further refinement would help: a regular review cycle. The pace of technological change is now such that any set of standards will drift between editions. A commitment to revisit the Standards at set intervals, informed by the Annual Consolidated Survey and by the PICARD research community, would make maintenance routine rather than occasional.

Every user of the Standards would benefit. Universities seeking recognition would have a clearer specification against which to design contemporary curricula, (see, for example, Paulo Rocha’s article in this edition of the Journal) and administrations could construct job profiles and development pathways that match the work their officers do. Managers themselves would hold a credential that is relevant to the environment in which they operate, and the PICARD Programme, for its part, would demonstrate once again that professional standards in Customs are evidence-led.

The WCO has already done the difficult part. The analysis exists, it is authoritative, and it is the WCO’s own work. Translating it into the Standards is a matter of drafting, consultation and membership endorsement, work for which PICARD provides the established forum. That work is worth starting now, and the membership has everything it needs to begin.

Note: I would like to sincerely thank our external reviewers^[1] for their invaluable contributions to the World Customs Journal in 2026. Your dedication, expertise and thoughtful feedback are critical to upholding the quality and integrity of our publication. We deeply appreciate your commitment to academic excellence and global knowledge sharing.