Specifics on the Nomenclature of the Rules of Origin

 

Rules of origin are the requirements for identifying a product's home country. Their significance stems from the fact that import taxes and quotas are often tied to the country of origin.

Different countries have widely varying laws of origin practices. While all governments acknowledge the need for major transformation, they may use different criteria to determine whether or not to tax the product. It is more vital in today's increasingly interconnected world that Members attain some degree of harmony in their procedures for carrying out such a mandate.

When do you employ the rules of origin?

Trade statistics, labeling and marking requirements, government procurement, and the application of anti-dumping duties and safeguard measures all rely on rules of origin.

No one can point to a section of GATT that

The GATT does not provide standards for determining a product's country of origin. Each contractual party was at liberty to set its own origin rules and, depending on the nature of the regulation at hand, to maintain several origin rules.

There is a desire to standardize origin rules.

Harmonization of rules of origin, or the formulation of rules of origin that will be implemented by all nations and that will be the same regardless of the reason for which they are used, is widely acknowledged as a means to improve the efficiency of international commerce. Misuse of rules of origin, which were originally intended to facilitate trade policy, has the potential to turn them into a trade policy tool in their own right. However, such harmonization is difficult due to the many different source regulations.