A business registering to operate across borders today faces a different maze in every country — different forms, different rules, different ways to prove the same information. This fragmentation costs time, money, and opportunity. SmartRules offers a common language: a simple, agreed way for any government to describe its administrative procedures, so that any person or any digital system can understand them. The United Nations has done this before — it standardized the shipping container, the trade document, and the customs declaration. SmartRules is the next step in that tradition.
Between 1968 and 1970, countries at the UN's International Maritime Organization agreed the standards for the modern shipping container, allowing for goods to be loaded, unloaded and move more easily through ports. Prior to the standardisation of the shipping container, each port handled cargo differently. Ships may have been loaded by hand and goods repacked at every border, with delays measured in weeks. The standard did not change what was shipped. It changed how goods moved between systems. The shipping container transformed global trade.
The same story of standardisation applies to passports. Every country issues its own passport, with its own design and its own language. But since the adoption of the UN's ICAO international travel document standard, passports follow one common format. The result: any border checkpoint can read any passport from any country. No bilateral agreements are needed. One format provides universal recognition.
Administrative procedures today are where shipping was before the container and where passports were before the international standard. Every country — and within every country, every different government ministry, agency and level of government — describes its procedures in its own way: through legislation, PDF forms, custom-built websites, or paper manuals. Sometimes the information is consistent, but most often it is not. A company that wants to register a business in three countries, or obtain clearances or permits from three agencies or layers of government within a country, must navigate three entirely separate systems, fill out three different sets of forms, and prove the same facts in three different ways. There is no common format. There is no shared vocabulary. There is no interoperability.
SmartRules provides a solution to this: a common way to describe any government's administrative procedures. What is needed now is an international agreement on the standard — and the United Nations is the natural convener.
The economic benefits are clear. Businesses and other economic operators need to engage with government authorities at different levels, within a country and abroad, to establish and grow. This includes business registration, registering employees, registering for taxes and incentives at sometimes multiple authorities, obtaining construction and environmental permits, applying for commercial licenses, public procurement, getting transport permits, import, export or distribution licenses, and dealing with customs. The administrative friction described above can add significant delays and costs to businesses, slowing growth or preventing it outright.
SmartRules can bring clarity to government regulations both for people and, importantly, for digital systems, whether operated by the government or by third party agents. It reduces costs and time for government and regulatory procedures while supporting business and economic growth. It also provides a platform for requirements to be understood and simplified.
SmartRules brings order to administrative procedures through three parts: a simple model that breaks down any requirement into its building blocks, a set of standard categories so every country describes its procedures using the same vocabulary, and a common format that allows any digital system to read and understand procedures from any country.
Every administrative procedure, from a business licence to a building permit, answers three questions. SmartRules separates these three questions into distinct layers. This makes the invisible visible: today, layers two and three exist only in legislation and in the minds of civil servants and regulators. SmartRules makes them explicit and structured — so that any person, any agency, or any digital system can understand them.
Each layer uses a set of agreed categories — a shared vocabulary that every country can adopt. These categories are not technical jargon. They are simply a common way to describe things that every government already does.
| What SmartRules classifies | Why it matters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Types of information governments request | So every country describes its forms the same way | Text, numbers, dates, yes/no questions, documents, email addresses, phone numbers |
| Ways applicants can complete a procedure | So countries can agree on what counts as valid proof | The applicant says so, they upload a document, or a government database confirms it automatically |
| Rules for what is acceptable | So “eligible” means the same thing everywhere | Must be at least 18, document must be less than 3 months old, company name must be unique |
The most powerful part of SmartRules is what it makes possible when countries adopt the same format for publishing their procedures. Consider the difference:
Every country, or agency within a country, builds its own digital forms, its own checking rules, its own verification systems. A business registering in three countries needs three different applications, three different formats, three different ways to prove the same information. No system can read another country's procedures.
Every country publishes its procedures in the same format. One application can read any country's rules. Proof submitted in one country can be recognized by another. A business prepares its information once — the system adapts it to each country's procedures automatically.
This is the container principle applied to government. The standard does not change what each country requires — every government keeps its own laws and its own rules. It changes how those procedures are described, so they can move freely between systems and across borders.
Not every element of SmartRules requires the same level of international agreement. Some parts are ready to adopt today. Others need testing. The most ambitious element requires countries to agree together.
UNCTAD has run the eRegistrations programme in more than sixty countries for over twenty years. It knows how governments actually work — not in theory, but in the daily reality of how civil servants process applications, check documents, and apply rules. SmartRules did not come from a research lab, it came from frontline experience.
The United Nations has set standards like this before. The UN Layout Key standardized the design of trade documents worldwide. UN/EDIFACT standardized electronic trade messages so that customs systems across borders could communicate. The Single Window concept unified customs procedures into a single point of contact. SmartRules is the next logical step in this tradition: a standard for how governments describe their administrative procedures.
Unlike standards set by technology companies — which serve commercial interests and favour those who can pay — a UN standard serves all countries equally. Developing countries, which face the greatest burden from regulatory fragmentation, stand to gain the most. A common standard means that a small African or Pacific Island nation can make its procedures visible to the world using the same format as any large economy.
This work aligns directly with commitments governments have already made. The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement requires countries to publish their procedures transparently. SmartRules is how they deliver on that commitment. The Sustainable Development Goals — particularly Goal 16 on effective institutions and Goal 17 on partnerships for development — provide the broader policy framework.
Three forums can advance this standard: UN/CEFACT plenaries for the technical recommendation; UNCTAD intergovernmental meetings for the policy mandate; and potential ITU-T collaboration for the digital infrastructure dimension.