When Standards and Customs Officials Are in the Same Room, Something Changes
Counterfeit goods cost the global economy $1.7 trillion a year. They erode brand integrity, undermine intellectual property, and put consumers at genuine risk. Despite the scale of the problem, the policy response has historically suffered from a structural flaw: the people best positioned to stop counterfeiting often aren't talking to each other.
Standards officials and customs authorities operate in adjacent but largely separate worlds. Technical regulatory bodies define what a genuine product looks like: its material composition, dimensional tolerances, chemical properties, and performance requirements. Customs agencies enforce what crosses the border. Both functions are essential to an effective anti-counterfeiting regime. Neither is sufficient alone. And yet, in most regulatory systems, coordination between them is the exception rather than the rule.
We had the opportunity to work on exactly that problem when we presented at the U.S. Department of Commerce Commercial Law Development Program's Regional Workshop on Standards, Product Authenticity and Trade Integrity in Marrakech alongside officials from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, National Institute of Standards and Technology, American National Standards Institute, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The goal was straightforward: build the shared vocabulary and practical frameworks that make cross-disciplinary cooperation possible. The workshop brought together customs and standards officials from across The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) to tackle something that too rarely happens: a real conversation at the intersection of disciplines that are usually siloed. Effective anti-counterfeiting requires standards bodies, customs authorities, and the private sector to work from the same playbook to protect consumers, safeguard IP, and foster the conditions for innovation.
A technical standard is only as powerful as its enforceability at the point of entry. A product standard specifying material composition or dimensional tolerances creates a meaningful anti-counterfeit barrier precisely because it defines what failure looks like. But a customs officer who does not know what the standard requires, or who lacks the tools to verify conformity, cannot act on that information. The standard becomes a technical document rather than an enforcement instrument.
This is the core argument for putting standards and customs officials in the same conversation. Effective anti-counterfeiting frameworks are built when the people who write the technical specifications and the people responsible for enforcement share a common understanding of what they are looking for.
Governments cannot close the gap alone, and neither can industry acting independently. The private sector has a clear and underutilized role to play that goes beyond filing IP registrations and reporting seizures.
Companies that manufacture genuine goods hold critical intelligence that customs authorities rarely have access to: detailed product specifications, authentication markers, known counterfeiting routes, and real-time data on suspect sellers and shipments. When that information flows into enforcement channels systematically targeting improves, resources are better allocated, and bad actors face a more consistent barrier.
That requires investment. It means designating staff to work directly with customs and standards bodies, building authentication tools into product design from the outset, participating in the standard-setting processes that define conformity in your sector, and providing practical training to the officials responsible for identifying non-compliant goods at the border. None of this is cost-free. All of it is more cost-effective than the alternative, which is a market increasingly populated by counterfeits that damage your brand, displace your sales, and in some cases injure the consumers you serve.
Our sessions in Marrakech organized this challenge around three interconnected elements. First, standards must be designed with enforceability in mind. Second, public-private collaboration must be structural, not episodic. Third, regulatory processes must be transparent and accessible, so that the private sector expertise that can strengthen a standard actually reaches the officials drafting it, before positions are fixed.
These elements are mutually reinforcing. Transparent regulatory development produces better standards. Better standards give customs authorities clearer criteria. Clearer criteria invite more consistent private sector cooperation. The system improves over time, but only if all three components are functioning.
The GCC is better positioned than many regions to move quickly on this. Pharmaceutical serialization frameworks in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are among the most advanced in the world. The Gulf Conformity Mark for electrical equipment has been mandatory since 2009. The infrastructure for standards-based enforcement exists, the opportunity is to extend and connect it across sectors and across the border-enforcement chain.
We left Marrakech encouraged by both the depth of the conversation and the appetite for concrete next steps. The officials in that room understood the problem clearly. What they needed (and what we were there to help develop) were practical frameworks for translating that understanding into action.
Parapet Advisors works at the intersection of trade policy, standards, and market access, helping companies and governments navigate the regulatory frameworks that shape whether products reach their markets. If your organization is working on standards alignment, anti-counterfeiting strategy, or regulatory engagement in the Gulf region or beyond, we'd welcome the conversation.
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