CBP – container seals on maritime cargo
Holland & Knight LLP, Washington DC, US, has provided us with the following information.
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The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a notice stating that, effective October 15, 2008, all maritime containers in transit to the United States are required to be sealed with a seal meeting the International Organization for Standardization Publicly Available Specification (ISO/PAS) 17712 standard. The requirement for container security standards was first established by section 204 of the SAFE Port Act. Section 1701 of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 tightened the requirement by directing the Department of Homeland Security to promulgate standards for sealing containers by April 1, 2008. This statute further provides that, if those container seal standards are not promulgated, requirements of the ISO/PAS standard will automatically come into effect on October 15. The notice goes on to state that vessel carriers must transmit, via the Vessel Automated Manifest System (AMS), all seal numbers to CBP at least 24 hours before cargo is laden aboard a vessel at a foreign port. Note: Congress has made the maritime industry a whipping boy in its on-going dispute with the Department of Homeland Security. Rather than try to ameliorate the burden, CBP is exacerbating the problem. It is uncertain whether there are enough container seals on the market that meet this standard to fulfill the upcoming demand surge. It is also uncertain whether there are sufficient CBP officers on the docks to examine all of the arriving containers. Reluctantly, I must advise carriers to start requiring shippers that utilize containers that are bound for or likely to transit through US ports to utilize approved container seals and to include on the manifest the seal number for each such container. 73 Fed. Reg. 46029 (August 7, 2008).
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