Counterfeiting, the Internet and the postal dilemma
Setting the scene
In an era of virtual worlds where everything is just one click away, the flow of postal packages is intensifying with the development of internet sales, and this is not making the task of Customs services any easier, particularly when it comes to combating counterfeiting and piracy.
The Internet is fast becoming the world’s biggest superstore, but at the same it has turned into a shop window and vehicle for counterfeit goods. Hundreds of millions of packages are transported by the postal services each year, and an increasing number of them contain counterfeit or pirated goods. In fact, according to the WCO Secretariat’s statistics, between 30% and 40% of all cases dealt with by Customs in the area of IPR enforcement involve postal traffic.
This is not a coincidence and there are many reasons for this: international legislation which is not robust enough and is ill-suited to the situation; the colossal growth in postal traffic; the fact that it is virtually impossible to conduct risk analyses; the long and often costly procedures that rights holders have to undertake, bearing in mind the small number of items generally intercepted in each individual postal traffic seizure; problems in identifying where responsibilities lie; and a host of other problems.
The result is that when Customs administrations conduct their controls, the only effective tools at their disposal are a sharp blade and a roll of sticky tape!
Cracks in international legislation
International postal traffic is governed by two international instruments:
- World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).
- The Universal Postal Union’s Universal Postal Convention (UPC).
Article 60 of the TRIPS Agreement, concerning “De Minimis” imports, provides that “Members may exclude from the application of the above provisions small quantities of goods of a non-commercial nature contained in travelers’ personal luggage or sent in small consignments”. In addition, Article 51 of the Agreement provides that there is an obligation to control goods only at importation, and if they infringe a trademark or copyright. This means that under the terms of these two Articles there is no obligation to subject small consignments to controls, controls are not mandatory at exportation, and there are restrictions on the scope of the controls limiting them to trademarks and copyright only.
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The Universal Postal Convention stipulates, in Article 5, that “… a postal item shall remain the property of the sender under it is delivered to the rightful owner, except when the item has been seized in pursuance of the legislation of the country of origin or destination …”, while Article 25 prohibits, subject to some exceptions, the transportation of certain goods by post, namely: narcotics; live animals; explosive substances; radioactive materials; immoral articles; and bank notes and other valuables. Counterfeit or pirated goods have not been included in the list of prohibited products!
Even more obstacles along the road
In addition to the legislative shortcomings and the fact that it is impossible to use targeting techniques, there are two other major obstacles hindering Customs actions.
The first obstacle concerns the difficulty of taking legal action in cases where counterfeit goods have been detained. Legal proceedings are costly for rights holder given the limited number of counterfeit or pirated items contained in a postal consignment. Doing so would cost the rights holder more than he had lost as a result of the counterfeiting, particularly as there is no simplified procedure, at the international level, for the rapid and low-cost destruction of counterfeit goods.
The second and principal obstacle relates to the quantity of packages handled by postal services. As an example, every night as many packages pass through Zaventem Airport in Brussels (Belgium) as there are Customs officers in Europe. Faced with tons and tons of small postal items, limited staff especially at night, and an almost nil possibility to do any effective targeting, the only option open to Customs is to physically inspect goods. This becomes an impossible mission due to the sheer volumes of postal traffic.
Working on the text
Task 5. Match left and right.
1. package a) lot
2. sales b) duty
3. responsibility c) the one who possesses something
4. agreement d) something that you must do as part of your job or duty
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5. obligation e) something wrapped in paper packed in a box and then sent by mail or delivered
6. consignment f) official document promising to do something
7. owner g) the total number of products sold during a particular period of time
8. shortcoming h) fault, weakness
Task 6. Define from what verbs these words are derived.
development legislation administration
sales analyses agreement
enforcement seizure provision
importation exportation restriction
Task 7. Use prefixes “dis-”, “il-”, “im-”, “un-” to create negative forms of adjectives.
legal, possible, licit, satisfied, honest, successful, patient, practical
Task 8. Give synonyms to the following words.
- task - to conduct
- to combat - to intercept
- to deal with - obligation
- legislation - goods
Task 9. Give antonyms to the following words.
- virtual - responsibility
- development - commercial
- growth - infringement
- international - prohibition
Task 10. Answer the following questions.
1. What is the reason for intensifying the flow of postal packages?
2. What has the Internet turned into?
3. What is the percentage of postal IP infringements in the number of all cases dealt with by Customs?
4. What are the reasons for such a high percentage?
5. How is International postal traffic governed by?
6. What do Articles 51 and 60 of the TRIPS agreement provide?
7. What does the Universal Postal Convention stipulate?
8. What are two more obstacles hindering Customs actions?
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Task 11. What things are prohibited for the transportation by post?
Task 12. Translate the texts into English.
a) Сотрудниками Минераловодской таможни пресечена пересылка по почте наркотиков. Житель города отправил украинскому адресату средства гигиены. В ценной бандероли находились два куска мыла и детский крем. Вот только тюбик из-под крема оказался упаковкой для бумажного контейнера, в котором обнаружено “вещество растительного происхождения серо-зеленого цвета”. По данным экспертизы, в соседнюю республику направлялся гашиш. Вес обнаруженного таможенниками наркотика – 10,83 грамма.
б) Польские таможенники конфисковали картину Огюста Ренуара стоимостью $350,000. Её пытались отправить в США в посылке, на которой было указано, что это работа небольшой ценности. Отправитель решил сэкономить, ведь за легальную пересылку ему пришлось бы заплатить $63,000.
Task 13. Read and translate the newspaper article concerning the problem with postal traffic in Russia.
Foreign-based Internet shopping sites are drawing increasing numbers of Russian consumers looking for deals, but as delays mount at the country’s notoriously inefficient postal service, many are finding that securing delivery of their items is no simple task.
Russian Post is nevertheless the only option for many people because it is much cheaper and parcels shipped using the service fall under different customs rules: Customers can ship items valued at up 10,000 rubles ($340) without paying a duty through Russian post, while the figure is only 5,000 through DHL and UPS.
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Task 14. Discuss in “buzz groups” advantages and disadvantages of trading via the Internet.
Text VI
Pre-reading
Task 1. Look up the pronunciation of the following words in the dictionary:
souvenir, antique, ivory, species, fauna, flora, permission.
Task 2. Translate the following words.
English Russian
signatories …
… запрет
seizure …
poaching …
… соглашение
… временный
extinction …
incentive …
Task 3. Form new parts of speech with the help of suffixes and prefixes given. Mind the spelling. Consult a dictionary.
(il-) legal (-ly)
frequent (-ly)
debate (-able)
mere (-ly)
(un-) likely
especial (-ly)
Task 4. Which words constitute the word family including the word “signatory”?
Task 5. Read the sentences and say what part of speech the italicized word is: noun or verb?
In 1989 the signatories of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) agreed to ban trade in ivory. In 2007 CITES extended this ban for further nine years.
Call of the wild
San Francisco ’s Chinatown
The cheap souvenirs give way to more exotic wares: antique figures carved in the Japanese netsuke style, statues of monkeys, delicate earrings and necklaces. They are ivory. There are lots of them. And they shouldn’t be there.
In 1989 the signatories of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) agreed to ban trade in ivory. In 2007 CITES extended this ban for a further nine years. A stroll in Chinatown suggests that trade is thriving nonetheless. Around half the ivory in this market comes from illegally killed elephants.
A sharp increase in ivory seizures in recent years also points to a flourishing trade. Meanwhile, rising wealth in Asia is raising the returns from poaching. Prices have leapt from $200 a kilo in 2004 to the present level of $850-900. New ivory is appearing: you can encase your mobile phone in it if you like. Some scientists think poaching may be as prevalent as it was before the original ban.
Citing CITES
The ivory ban is frequently held up as a prime exhibit for CITES, which many conservationists consider a highly successful agreement. Elephant numbers have been rising by 4% a year in the well-protected populations of southern and east Africa, but in Central and West Africa no one knows what is going on. Some countries, such as Botswana , home to a quarter of the African total, and South Africa, now have so many elephants that they would like to shoot more of them (and have asked CITES, without success, for permission to sell more ivory).
In all, CITES bans trade in nearly 1,000 animal and plant species; trade in many more is limited by permits. The Interpol working group on wildlife crime said that there were clear signs that illegal trade was increasing. More frequent seizures, of larger volume, have been occurring. The increased seizures reflect larger, more frequent shipments by the sophisticated criminal gangs now involved in the trade.
If trade is on the rise, then the efficacy of trade bans as a conservation measure is at least debatable. To be sure, some bans have worked. Exports of wild birds from four of the five leading bird-exporting countries fell by more than two-thirds between the late 1980s and the late 1990a as a result of CITES-related trade measures, including an American import ban.
The temporary ban on the trade in the vicuña, a relative of the llama, and its wool is another success. Four South American countries imposed a trade ban in 1967; a CITES ban followed in 1975. Later CITES allowed trade in sheared wool on a permit basis. The population has risen to more than 250,000. The ban lasted long enough to give vicuñas time to recover.
Horns and stripes
However, for other species a ban has merely spawned a thriving illegal trade. After trade in all five species of rhino was banned, the black rhino became extinct in at least 18 African countries. The global rhino population has fallen from 75,000 in the early 1970s to around 11,000 today, and some species are on the verge of extinction. Tigers have fared no better.
The point is not that bans never work. They can, especially in the short term or when species are in dire danger. But their longer-term success depends on three factors. First, they must be coupled with a reduction in demand for the banned products. If a ban helps to shift people’s tastes, so much the better. Second, they must not undermine incentives to conserve endangered species in the wild. Third, they have to be supported by governments and citizens in the countries where these species live. If these conditions are not met, bans are unlikely either to reduce trade or to maintain endangered species. They may even make matters worse.
Take demand first. Trade in cat and seal skins, and in parrots, has fallen because consumer campaigns destroyed demand at the same time as trade bans cut the legal supply. Trade is reduced most when demand is sensitive to price: cat and seal skins and parrots fall into this class. Demand is also influenced by fashion.
For tigers and rhinos, demand has proved more resilient. The trade ban has served to increase the price of horn, but demand has stayed strong – and so, therefore, has the incentive to poach. The resulting illegal trade has proved hard to combat.
Second, consider incentives to conserve. Bans may cut out legal wildlife trade, but some economists say they undermine efforts to conserve animals and plants in the wild and may even create incentives to get rid of them. If people have no economic interest in maintaining wild animals or their habitat, the attraction of converting the land to some other use, such as agriculture, increases.
In addition to removing incentives to conserve, bans also remove a source of income with which to manage conservation. Partly for this reason, some countries have asked CITES for permission to sell elephant ivory, rhino horn or tiger bone. The third lot of factors affecting the success of trade bans is the effectiveness of government and social institutions. National enforcement of CITES trade bans is vital for them to work.
Working on the text
Task 6. What do the following abbreviations stand for?
WTO CITES
WCO EU
HS IMF
GATT CIS
CCC FAO
Task 7. Use the dictionary and find the difference between “a hunter” and “a poacher”.
Task 8. Write out the names of all species mentioned in the text.
Task 9. The adjective “sophisticated” has several meanings. It may mean:
a) having a lot of experience of life, and good judgment about socially important things such as art, fashion etc.;
b) having a lot of knowledge and experience of difficult and complicated subjects and therefore able to understand them well;
c) very advanced, well-designed, working in a complicated way.
Which meaning would you choose while translating the sentence from the text: “The increased seizures reflect larger, more frequent shipments by the sophisticated criminal gangs now involved in the trade.”
Task 10. Match the words given in the left column with their definitions in the right column.
1. ban a) place to buy
2. trade b) when a particular type of animal or plant stops existing
3. market c) when someone is officially allowed to do something
4. demand d) exchange of goods
5. seizure e) a group of similar animals or plants
6. permission f) to prohibit
7. species (plural) s) taking away illegal goods such as drugs or guns
8. extinction h) the need to have something
Task 11. The prefixes “im-”, “il-”, “un-”, are called negative prefixes. Form adjectives with negative meaning.
legal proper economic
licit successful possible
lawful patient fashionable
legitimate legible practical
What other negative prefixes do you know? Give examples.
Task 12. What synonyms for the word “ban” do you know?
Task 13. Comprehension questions.
1) When did the signatories of CITES agree to ban trade in ivory?
2) How many species did the Convention ban trade in?
3) What signs showed that illegal trade was increasing?
4) What trade measures resulted in success?
5) What happened to the black rhino after the trade ban?
6) What three factors that the longer-term success depends on, are mentioned in the text?
7) What is demand influenced by?
8) What alternative programs have been successful?
9) What is the third factor affecting the success of trade bans?
10) How can countries conserve endangered species?
Task 14. Read and translate the newspaper article into Russian. Render the article.
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