Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

110 crossin, hayman, and taylorto how broader schemes should operate and indicate how and wherenational capacity building should take place (element 5).Customs Codes. Improved coordination between trade trackingsystems may also involve expansion of the World Customs Organization’sHarmonized System of Customs Coding, which uses a six-digitnumber to identify traded goods. So far, the system has failed to keepup with an ever-expanding body of CTRs, as it is only revised and updatedperiodically (a complete revision takes about seven years). Atpresent, the primary purpose of the harmonized system is to determinetrade statistics—it is not designed to be a tracking device.The statistical information that harmonized codes provide canassist in constructing patterns in the volume of goods exported,transported, and imported. When measured and analyzed againsttrading data supplied by national authorities and industry, anomaliesand gaps can be identified that may indirectly indicate points of illicitcommodity flows. The U.S. single product code for the Patagoniantoothfish, 9 for example, has helped to distinguish between legitimateand illegitimate sources of a wide range of products made fromthe fish. Harmonized system codes are, however, easy to falsify, andit is possible to describe the same product in a number of differentways (for example, the ozone-damaging pesticide methyl bromidehas at least four separate and equally convincing classifications), socross-checking is necessary, and over-reliance on coding is bestavoided.Role of Information Technology. There is immense untappedpotential for information technology to provide better-quality informationfor efficient commodity tracking. The analytical capacity ofconvention secretariats is hampered by a lack of software tools for modeling,time-series, and trend analysis and for Geographic InformationSystems analysis. Greater investment in building technological capacity,as well as in harmonizing convention websites and databases,would provide a solid foundation for tracking commodities coveredby more than one international or multilateral agreement. 10 As discussedbelow, technology may also improve the tracking of a commoditythrough various stages of production.The analysis of trade records and the integration of data from differentnational and international authorities with “drill down” softwarethat checks for irregularities and discrepancies should be central to anyform of intelligence-led policing. Simple and cost-effective versions ofsuch software need to be developed explicitly for developing countries.Internet access is often necessary for quick and regularized exchange of