Star Trek and Customs Law

Star Trek is usually outside the scope of this blog, since its fictional legal systems are a) quite a bit different from ours and b) not very well fleshed-out in any of the TV series or movies.  But previous guest author Larry Friedman has recently found a way to bring Star Trek and the law together on his Customs Law Blog, with a post about a customs ruling involving Star Trek toys.  Larry goes on to muse about the role of customs law in the Star Trek universe.  As it turns out, a check of a database of Star Trek transcripts finds a few references to cargo manifests, particularly on Deep Space Nine (unsurprising given the setting).  So while we don’t see a lot of customs law on Star Trek, it does exist.