The Customs Convention on the Temporary Importation for Private Use of Aircraft and Pleasure Boats was concluded at Geneva on 18 May 1956 by the Inland Transport Committee of the Economic Commission for Europe. It is not the Customs Convention on Containers, nor the Customs Convention on the Temporary Importation of Commercial Road Vehicles, opened the same day, nor the 1954 New York Convention on private road vehicles. The authentic texts are English and French, in a single copy. Depositary: the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The Protocol of Signature has the same force as the main text. It was registered as UNTS No. 4630, volume 319.

The preamble refers to the Geneva Agreement of 16 June 1949 providing for the provisional application of draft international customs conventions on touring, and to the New York conventions of 4 June 1954. Unlike the 1949 draft, those texts contained no provision on temporary duty-free importation of aircraft and pleasure boats other than kayaks and canoes in use and under 5.5 metres in length. The stated aim is to facilitate the development of international touring by means of aircraft and pleasure boats. No customs-evasion handbook is transcribed.

Article 1 defines, for the Convention, import duties and import taxes, person, boats, aircraft, temporary importation, temporary importation papers, carnets de passages en douane and issuing and guaranteeing associations, at the level of principle. Article 2: each Contracting Party shall grant temporary admission without payment of import duties and import taxes and free of import prohibitions and restrictions, subject to re-exportation, to aircraft and boats owned by persons normally resident outside its territory and used for their private use on the occasion of a temporary visit. Fuel in supply tanks of normal capacity, connected to the engine, is admitted on the same terms. Component parts imported for the repair of a unit already admitted may be imported temporarily.

Chapter III allows Parties to authorize associations, including those affiliated to an international organization, to issue the temporary importation papers. Carnets for aircraft and for boats follow the standard forms in Annexes 1 and 2. Article 12 requires re-exportation in the same general state, except for wear and tear, within the period of validity; Article 14 forbids use, even incidentally, for transport against remuneration between points within that territory. Article 32 preserves the right of Parties to apply import prohibitions or restrictions based on non-economic considerations — public morality, public security, public health. No operational carnet regulation is transcribed.

Article 33: open for signature until 31 August 1956 inclusive by members of ECE and countries admitted in a consultative capacity, thereafter for accession; ratification or accession is effected by deposit with the Secretary-General. Article 34: the Convention comes into force on the ninetieth day after five of the countries referred to in Article 33, paragraph 1, have signed it without reservation of ratification or have deposited their instruments. The UN Treaty Collection records 1 January 1959. The 1990 Istanbul Convention later combined several temporary-admission conventions in a single instrument; it does not automatically replace them all.

Cover: the Palais des Nations in Geneva, seat of the Economic Commission for Europe; we do not claim the hall. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Customs Convention on the Temporary Importation for Private Use of Aircraft and Pleasure Boats; Customs Convention on the Temporary Importation for Private Use of Aircraft and Pleasure Boats (UNECE).