Pakistan’s experience with TIR—particularly on corridors involving China, Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia—shows that TIR underperformance is not caused by weak legal frameworks or lack of political support. It is caused by execution-level resistance.

A key operational reality observed in Pakistan is this:

No government will facilitate a system if its own enforcement officers recommend against it.

At borders, the critical decision is made by frontline officers who carry personal accountability for post-clearance outcomes. Where officers feel exposed to audit, disciplinary, or reputational risk, they respond rationally by delaying clearance, increasing inspections, and escalating decisions. This behavior is often described as “non-compliance with TIR,” but in practice it is institutional self-protection.

In Pakistan, delays on China-bound TIR movements are frequently misinterpreted as political or commercial resistance. In reality, China’s approach is system-protective, not political. Chinese enforcement authorities ask one question only: Does this movement increase risk for my enforcement system or my officers? If the answer is unclear, facilitation tightens—regardless of bilateral relations or transit revenue.

From Pakistan’s experience, the way TIR is often promoted as a “fast clearance” tool unintentionally increases enforcement anxiety. For officers, speed is associated with reduced control and higher personal exposure. This framing weakens execution confidence.

Pakistan’s key observation for IRU is that TIR works only when implemented as a protected, system-based enforcement framework, not as a discretionary fast lane. Where decisions are system-driven, auditable, and institutionally protected, facilitation becomes possible.

Practical advice to IRU from Pakistan:

Reframe TIR messaging from speed to risk-controlled, officer-protected transit.

Encourage member administrations to explicitly protect officers acting in accordance with approved TIR SOPs.

Promote system-based decision-making over individual discretion.

Emphasize discipline symmetry: automatic suspension, no lobbying, equal treatment of state and private operators.

For Pakistan–China corridors, the objective is not political facilitation, but system symmetry. When facilitation becomes safer than obstruction for the officer at the border, TIR works.

IRU is uniquely positioned to enable this shift by strengthening execution confidence—not by expanding promotion, but by aligning TIR’s global promise with border-level reality.