ABSTRACT
In contrast with the European Union (EU), integrated border management (IBM) elsewhere has mainly to do with greater efficiency in border-related cooperation at the nation-state level. The primary objective of North American IBM initiatives has been to reduce the long waits to cross the border without sacrificing the correct balance between facilitation and control. IBM rules cannot easily be located within just one framework; they are spread across a number of legal and administrative instruments. In terms of IBM, progress was made at both the central EU and the member states level, the latter mainly through a network of bilateral agreements. EU border management is not confined to the simple checking of passports and the prevention of illicit movements across the green border. The requirements are more complex. During the early Schengen phase of the 1990s, the specific border-related mechanisms had to be based on a very small number of instructions from the original instruments themselves.
