Method
Five checks, then a stamp
Nothing appears on the front page without passing the same sequence. The sequence exists because most errors in continental coverage are date errors or annex errors, and both are avoidable with a document in hand.
- 01
Intake against the issuing text
A document arrives from a secretariat, a ministry, a port authority or a reader. The first check is whether the issuing body has published it. A copy forwarded by a delegation is a lead, not a source.
- 02
Match the annex
The article states the principle and the annex carries the operation. Line numbers, quota volumes, origin rules and transition periods are read in the annex, in the revision that was in force when the item was filed.
- 03
Find the operative date
Adoption, publication, signature, ratification, transposition and commencement are six different dates. The label prints the one that changes behaviour, and names the instrument that sets it.
- 04
Test the caution
Every instrument has a weak point: a threshold not reached, a table not filed, a translation that shifts the verb. The caution field states that weakness in one line, without predicting what a government will do next.
- 05
Print and file
The label is printed with the check time and filed by body and instrument type. Corrections are printed beside the original entry, never in place of it.
What gets refused
- A draft text described as final. Drafts are useful for context and are quoted as drafts or not at all.
- A ratification figure with no depositary behind it. Counts published by a ministry and counts published by a secretariat are different numbers.
- An effective date taken from a press release. The notice is a document with a number and a publication date, and it is checked as one.
- A caution that predicts politics. The field describes the instrument, not the next election.
Working documents
The desk works from published texts, depositary notifications, commencement registers and official tariff databases. Where two official sources disagree, both figures appear in the note with the discrepancy described. Readers who send a document receive a check result even when the item is not printed, because a rejection with a reason is more useful than silence.
Numbers
Every figure is read twice, once from the text and once from the table the text refers to. Tariff percentages, quota volumes and transition periods are copied with their units and their base year, because a rate quoted without either is not a rate. Where a secretariat publishes a revised series, the older series stays in the note so a reader can see what changed between printings.
Photographs
Images show the subject of the beat: a counter, a port gate, an empty chamber before a session. No stock meeting rooms, no handshakes, no pictures of flags standing in for a story about a customs line. An image that could sit on any business site is rejected at the same stage as a label without a date.