Interest in chemical transportation regulation has steadily increased in recent years on a global scale. This year, the World Customs Organization (WCO) and its 177 members approved a proposal for the Program Global Shield pilot to become a long-term program. Program Global Shield is the joint international effort aimed at eliminating the smuggling of chemicals commonly used in Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks.
The program was originally designed by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2010, and it is now being led by the World Customs Organization (WCO) in partnership with Interpol and the United Nations' Office on Drugs and Crime. Over 70 countries participated in the Global Shield pilot program, which took place from November 1, 2010 to April 30, 2011. As part of the pilot program, the participating countries made efforts to continuously share information with each other to ensure that certain chemicals moving throughout the globe were being used safely and legally, which I discussed last January 2011.
The Global Shield pilot program had much success: Global Shield partner countries have seized more than 33 metric tons of material used to produce IEDs and made 19 arrests in various countries around the world. As a result of this success, in June 2011, the WCO and its 177 members approved a proposal for the pilot project to become a long-term program.
Ensuring the security of the global chemical supply chain is vital to protecting all nations from the devastating weapons that can be developed using certain dangerous chemicals. Establishing Program Global Shield as a permanent fixture is an important step towards preventing these chemicals from falling into the wrong hands - both at home and abroad.
Ryan Loughin is Director of Petrochemical & Energy Solutions for the Advanced Integration division of ADT- www.adtbusiness.com/petrochem. He provides security education to CFATS and MTSA-affected companies and is a member of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA), Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Associates (SOCMA), Energy Security Council (ESC) and American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS). Loughin has also completed multiple levels of CVI Authorized User training (Chemical- Terrorism Vulnerability Information) which was authored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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