Trade and Customs Borders

Ben Rohrbaugh is a fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. He is a Co-founder of the Tanager Group, a humanitarian response company that provides services to refugees and asylum seekers. Ben teaches at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School and is the author of More or Less Afraid of Nearly Everything, published by the University of Michigan in 2020. Ben worked on the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition Team in 2020/2021, and was previously a Senior Advisor in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Policy. From 2014 to 2016, he served as the Director for Enforcement and Border Security at the National Security Council in the White House, where he was responsible for border management with Mexico and Canada and global supply chain security. He previously worked as a Counselor to the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Solomon Wong is President and CEO of InterVISTAS, a global consulting firm with services in market analyses, policy development, planning and strategies related to the movement of people and goods. He has a track record on regulatory and technological change and has helped to implement solutions for a range of private/public sector clients. Results of his work have informed planning of new facilities throughout the US and Canada.

Hubert Duchesneau is a Research Fellow with BIG_Lab and a Customs Modernization Expert with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He also works in Cultural Property Protection Capability Building with the Heritage Crime Task Force of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Hubert is a former World Customs Organization (WCO) Senior Technical Officer and former Director of International Cooperation and Capacity Development with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). He has 30+ years of experience developing and implementing Customs and international trade capacity building initiatives, competency-based leadership development, and talent management frameworks.

Geoffrey Hale is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge, where he taught from 1999 to 2021. His research interests include public policy, particularly Canada-U.S. relations, fiscal and tax policies, the political economy of trade and investment policies, North American integration, and border management and security. His current project is “Managing Canadian Federalism Through the Pandemic.”

Jenia Peteva is a Policy Officer in Revenue Administration at the European Commission. She contributes to the improvement of the efficiency and the digital transformation of the customs and tax administrations of the member states of the European Union. Previously, Jenia was a member of the Secretariat of the Information and Management Steering Board of the EUC, where she was involved in shaping the data governance and knowledge management policy at the EUC.

Cameron Walter is the current Head of the Heritage Crime Task Force of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). He is the former Lead of International Relations for Europe, Africa and Middle East with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), where he focused on supply chain security, counter-terrorism, customs intelligence and trade facilitation. Cameron has participated in numerous operations with WCO targeting heritage trafficking networks. He transferred in 2017 to Canadian Heritage as the Deputy Director of International Partnerships, where he coordinated efforts to expand Canada’s global creative industries trade while also building international partnerships to combat trafficking of cultural property.

Kathrine Richardson is an urban and economic geographer and a Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at San José State University. Her research specializes in the mobility and retention of the internationally highly skilled, and how highly skilled foreigner professionals may influence the growth and change of urban systems. Specifically, Professor Richardson’s work focuses on transnational migrations of highly-skilled immigrants between the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Her book, Knowledge Borders: Temporary Labor Mobility and the Canada-US Border Region, examines the movement of high technology and biotechnology professionals across the Canada–U.S. border under Chapter 16 of NAFTA (now USMCA) in a post 9/11 environment within the binational region of Cascadia, which includes British Columbia, Washington state, Oregon, and portions of Northern California. In addition to academic publications, Dr. Richardson conducted an important study on the mobility and settlement of highly-skilled North Americans across the Canada–U.S. border under NAFTA (now USMCA) for the executive branch of the Government of Canada.

With more than 24 years’ experience in customs and trade policy and law enforcement, Janine Harker brings an integrated perspective to the challenges facing traders and governments involved in the cross-border movement of goods. She currently serves as the President of the Canadian Society of Customs Brokers and advocates for consistent and transparent regulations and processes to govern the import and export of goods. Janine has represented the Government of Canada on customs, intelligence and national security issues as both a diplomat and on committees at the World Customs Organization, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and other international organizations.

Ferdinand Desmazieres is a World Customs Organisation Expert, assistant to the Deputy Secretary General of the World Customs Organisation ( (Mr. Ricardo Treviño Chapa), Deputy Secretary General, World Customs Organization).