1. Evolution of SCC and its Customs Law Program
(1) SCC
Shanghai Customs College, traced back in 1908 in Qing Dynasty, currently is a full-time general higher education institution subordinated to the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China (GACC).
Shanghai Customs College started the program of the International Economic Law (which was a three years education and focused on the customs law) from September of 1996 and correspondently established the Law Department in 1997 under the approval of the General Administration of Customs. Ten years later, the Ministry of Education approved the bachelor programs (four years duration) of Shanghai Customs College in March 2007. SCC has had the School of Customs administration, School of Economics and Business Management, School of Law, School of Foreign Language and Department of General Education. It has offered seven Bachelor programs (four-year duration) programs which are Customs Administration, Logistic Management, Auditing, International Business, Taxation, Laws and English since 2008.
SCC has had the Master program (two-year full-time) of Taxation from 2015. on May 10, 2018, SCC has obtained the permanent authorization/qualification to confer the Master degrees from the academic degrees committee of the state council, and meanwhile has formally been approved to offer two new graduate programs which are Taxation and Public Management. Therefore, there are 2,323 undergraduates, 70 postgraduates in total in this year.
Meanwhile, SCC assumes the function of customs capacity building as one of the Asia and pacific training center of the WCO, and is training center of the customs capacity building for “The Belt and Road countries and for African countries as well. There are thousands of domestic and foreign customs officials received the various training courses and programs in SCC every year.
SCC has developed the educational and academic cooperation with a number of the relevant universities, such as the Münster University, the Erasmus University and Fontys University in Netherlands, etc.
In this April, the Bachelor program of Customs Administration of SCC just got the recognition from WCO headquarters in Brussels that the curriculum of this program meets the criteria of the WCO PICARD Professional Standards. A WCO certificate of recognition was therefore issued in this regard.
(2) Customs Law Program of SCC
Since September 2007, the Law Department has enrolled the bachelor students of the program of law (customs law direction). In December of the same year, the speciality of law (customs law direction) had been supported and funded by the China’s Ministry of Education as a special specialty of the higher education for three years.
In 2016, in order to further strengthen the competitive advantage of the graduates of the Law Department, based on the common mandatory courses, the speciality of law has formally extended into two directions (two models of the specialized courses), namely the directions of the Customs Law and International Trade and Customs Compliance.
The Department of Customs Law has cultivated more than 5,000 graduates so far who are the professionals working in various relevant circles, such as the customs officers, the judges, the prosecuting attorneys, the lawyers specialized in the customs affairs and compliance, the managers or the senior staff of the foreign trade and international supply chain enterprises and entities.
2. Current Situation of the Department of Customs Law
The Department of Customs Law enrolls around 45 undergraduate students every year. In December of 2019, there are 176 students enrolling in the Department. The ratio of students to teachers of the Law Department is around 14: 1.
1) Education
At present, there are 16 mandatory basic courses of law, such as jurisprudence, constitution, the civil law, the criminal law, the administrative law and procedure laws, the IPR Law and so on offered to the students. At the same time, the customs law, the taxation law, the International economic law (bilingual course), the International taxation law (bilingual course) and the Legal English are also offered as the fundamental courses for this speciality. Furthermore, the Comparative Customs law, the International Customs Law, the IPR Border Protection, etc. as the special but core courses, are supported and funded by the College, Shanghai Education Commission or the Education Department of GACC.
Except the teachers offering the common and basic Customs-related courses in SCC, the Law Program has 15 full-time teachers (4 professors, 5 associate professors, 6 lecturers(here which means a teaching position)) specialized in deferent parts of the Customs Law, such as the Taxation Law, the Customs Administrative Law, Anti-smuggling, the IPR Border Protection, etc. Most of the full-time teachers have the doctor degree of law and almost all of them have the practice license as a lawyer. Among them, there are three teachers visited the foreign universities, such as University of Muenster, University of Nottingham, University of Swansea, as the visiting scholars and two teachers graduated from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Erasmus University. The Law Department also hires 8 specialized adjunct teachers (5 practical experts, and 3 well-known professors of the universities) for every three years.
The Law Department has three sections: the Customs Law Section, the International Customs Law Section and Anti-Smuggling Sections to engage in teaching and research efforts.
The Law Department has a moot court with 225 square meters and a anti-smuggling laboratory, as well as the other off-campus practical teaching bases and partners such as the Third Branch of the People's Procuratorate of Shanghai, the Third Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai, the Shanghai Haoliwen Partners, Beijing DHH (Shanghai) Law Firm, etc. to carry out practical courses and internship to cultivate students' practical ability.
Additionally, the Law Department certainly may shares, if there is any need, the other specialized laboratories and practical places in the SCC. Except the Customs offices around country that can corporate with SCC to carry out the practical teaching, SCC currently has 12 customs affairs-related laboratories (such as the international supply chain computerized simulation laboratory, the international trade computerized simulation laboratory, the customs declaration simulation laboratory, etc.) with around 3500 square meters which can hold 921 students at same time. A new training center with around 1518 square meters is under construction now.
2) Academic Research
The Law Department attaches importance to the academic research and has gradually gained the fruitful achievements.
The teachers of the Law Department have undertaken or deeply participated in a number of the research projects and assignments funded by the national, provincial authorities and the other Departments. Based on these research projects and assignments, the teachers of the Law Department provide the expertise and advice to the customs-related affairs, policies, even to the drafts of legislations of China.
In recent years, there are 25 textbooks related to the customs law published, such as The Customs Law, Theory of Anti-Smuggling, Principles and Practice of Customs Administrative Law, Comparative Customs Law, “International Customs Law”, Principles and Selected Cases of IPR border Protection, Selected Cases and Practical Training of Customs Law and so on.
Meanwhile, there are 16 published monographs, written by the faculty of the Law Department, which are Political Analysis of China Customs Reform, Research on International Customs Legal System. “Research on the Internationalization and Localization of IPR Border Protection System”, “Study on Customs Administrative Punishment”, “Study on Legal Issues of US Foreign Trade Zone”, “EU Tariff Law”, “Research on U.S. Customs Legal System”, “Principles and Systems of the Japanese Customs Law”, etc.
The faculty of the Law Department publishes more than 20-30 articles each year, and lots of them are published by the Chinese peer-reviewed Journals and some of them were published by the World Customs Journal or the other English professional Journals.
In additional, the Customs Law Research Center of SCC, which mainly consists of the teachers of the Law Department, edits the annual journal named “Customs Law review”. Up to now, there are 8 volumes of “Customs Law review” published by the Law Press which is a well-known professional publishing house in China.
