Who this is for: Those working on trade digitisation, paperless customs, verifiable credentials, and regulatory-grade document assurance. Especially relevant for Trust Architects navigating UNTP alignment, Rec 49 implementation, and/or cross-border trade compliance.
UNVTD Specification: https://un.opensource.unicc.org/unece/uncefact/spec-unvtd
You've built the API bridges. You've mapped the schemas. You've digitised myriad documents to try and make a supply chain "transparent". You've sat through yet another interoperability workshop where everyone nods and then you just continue trying to get documents from A to B without the whole thing falling over. And at some point, you've probably asked: Why isn't there a shared way to make trade documents verifiable, portable, and actually trustworthy without reinventing the whole stack?
UN Verifiable Trade Documents (UNVTD) is a developing technical specification under UN/CEFACT (United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business). It applies W3C Verifiable Credentials and Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs) to international trade documents like: bills of lading, invoices, certificates of origin, insurance certificates, customs declarations and packing lists, warehouse receipts and more.
The goal is to enable these documents to be issued in a digital, tamper-evident, cryptographically verifiable format, allowing customs, regulators, and buyers to confirm authenticity without a central authority or platform.
According to UN/CEFACT, the initiative aims to address one of the foundational gaps in digital trade: "Lack of standardisation and interoperability for verifiable credentials in international trade hinders automation, trust and scalability."
Together with UN/CEFACT Recommendation No. 49 - Transparency at Scale, the UN Transparency Protocol (UNTP), and the Global Registrar Information Directory (GRID), it will form the most promising decentralised and scalable approach to solving the document assurance gap in global trade. This also offers a path to counter greenwashing, by making claims traceable back to verifiable evidence, enabling transparency with integrity. This is a foundation for a race to the top, where systems can interoperate without surrendering control, credibility is earned through verifiable proof, and businesses can compete on the good work they do.
How It All Fits Together
UNVTD is not a standalone initiative. It is the document-level application of a broader movement toward interoperable, decentralised assurance in international trade.
UN/CEFACT Recommendation No. 49 - Transparency at Scale or Rec 49 provides the policy-level guidance.
UN Transparency Protocol (UNTP) is the implementation framework for Rec 49.
UN Verifiable Trade Documents (UNVTD) aims to define how to issue and verify trade documents (like bills of lading, invoices, and certificates) as verifiable credentials. It will essentially be an instantiation, or real-world application, of UNTP principles, aligned with Rec 49 and built using the same verifiable data models and primitives.
GRID (Global Registry of Identifiers) is a resolution layer that supports verifiable trust at scale. It will provide a common framework for authoritative registrars to publish verifiable information in support of discovery and cross-border interoperability. It is a key output-in-progress from the UN/CEFACT Global Trust Registry project.
Status
The UN/CEFACT VTD project is active, and a working draft of the specification is available.
Draft data models and credential structures have already been proposed for multiple document types, including bills of lading, invoices, certificates of origin, and inspection certificates. These early schemas provide a concrete starting point for implementers to assess interoperability and alignment with existing systems.
UNVTD Specification: https://un.opensource.unicc.org/unece/uncefact/spec-unvtd
UN/CEFACT has invited community participation and has outlined the types of functional expertise and stakeholder inputs the project is seeking. Learn more here: https://uncefact.unece.org/spaces/uncefactpublic/pages/246317069/Verifiable+Credentials+for+Trade
Have Your Say
If you're working on system-wide trust, document integrity, or composable traceability and have the expertise, you could contribute to the UNVTD project and help define the protocols that might actually work across borders and silos.
If you just want to discuss it with others working in trust architecture, we've opened a UN Verifiable Trade Documents thread on chat.pyx.io. What does UNVTD make possible that wasn't viable before? How do we ensure these specs remain open and composable? And what gaps still need bridging? Join in with your perspective.