www.globaltradealert.org

The COCOO-GTA Doctrine: A Strategic Model for Originating International Trade Disputes

This doctrine establishes the protocol for interrogating the Global Trade Alert (globaltradealert.org) data center. This platform is COCOO’s primary offensive weapon for executing its international strategies. We do not use it for academic research; we use it as a hunting ground to identify illegal and discriminatory trade barriers that form the basis of high-value, publicly-funded Unsolicited Proposals (USP) to national governments. This is the engine that drives the entire USP-to-WTO pipeline, turning global protectionism into a strategic opportunity for COCOO.

1. Core Principles of Interrogation

Our use of the GTA platform is governed by the most ambitious principles of the COCOO framework. We are not just observing trade policy; we are identifying actionable violations of international law.

• Proactive Case Origination: We do not wait for victim companies to approach us. We use GTA to proactively identify nations whose industries are being harmed by illegal trade barriers. This aligns with the core strategy to “MONITOR TRADE BARRIERS IMPOSED BY A NATION VIOLATE WTO RULES, AND APPROACHES (USP)”.¹
• Weaponizing WTO Law: Our primary mission on GTA is to find evidence of violations of core WTO principles, specifically “VIOLATIONS OF WTO ART.III.4” (National Treatment), which prohibits discrimination between imported and domestically produced “like products”.¹ GTA’s data provides the initial “scent” of such a violation.
• The USP-to-WTO Pipeline: GTA is the first and most critical step in this pipeline. Intelligence gathered here forms the evidentiary basis of a USP to a national government, offering to litigate a case on their behalf. This perfectly “ALIGNS INCENTIVES” of victim corporations (who provide specific data on harm) and the national government (who has the legal standing, or locus, to bring a WTO case).¹
• Systemic Focus: While firms focus on product-specific barriers, COCOO uses GTA to identify “SYSTEMIC trade barrier[s] which affect the national wpi [public interest]”. This elevates our USP from a simple commercial dispute to a matter of national economic policy, making it far more compelling to a government client.¹

2. Weaponizing the Platform’s Arsenal: Capabilities and Search Rules

Mastery of the GTA Data Center’s powerful filtering is essential to our mission. It allows us to surgically dissect global trade policy to find the specific interventions we can exploit.²

• Official Search Rules & Functionality:
  • Output Type Selection: We can choose to export raw GTA entries, calculate Summary statistics, or retrieve Trade estimates to quantify the harm.²
  • Curated Datasets: The platform offers pre-filtered datasets that are of immense strategic value. The most important for our purposes is “Harmful Trade Policy Measures”, which immediately filters out liberalizing or neutral actions.²
  • Jurisdiction Filtering: The ability to filter by Implementing Jurisdictions (the country imposing the barrier, e.g., the USA) and Affected Jurisdictions (the country being harmed, e.g., Mexico) is the core of our targeting mechanism.²
  • Intervention Type Filtering: We can filter by specific types of policy instruments (e.g., tariffs, import bans, local content requirements), allowing us to focus on measures most likely to violate WTO rules.²
  • Sector and Product Filtering: We can narrow our search to specific Affected Sectors (e.g., C27 – Manufacture of electrical equipment) or Affected Products using HS codes (e.g., 8501 – Electric motors and generators). This allows for highly granular investigations.²
  • Temporal Filtering: The Implementation Period filter allows us to focus on recently enacted barriers that are ripe for challenge.²

3. Strategic Interrogation: The Questions We Ask

We interrogate GTA not as economists, but as solicitors building a case. Every query is designed to find an actionable legal injury.

• For USP-to-WTO Origination:

  • Which “Harmful Trade Policy Measures” has the United States implemented in the last 24 months that specifically affect the “Automotive” sector in Mexico and Canada?
  • Can we identify a new product standard (PS) or regulation implemented by an EU member state that “AFFECT INTERNAL SALES” and “DISCRIMINATES BETWEEN LIKE PRODUCTS,” potentially violating WTO GATT Article III.4?¹
  • Is there a pattern of subsidies (Intervention Type = “Subsidy”) being granted to domestic producers (e.g., EU solar panel manufacturers like Meyer Burger) that disadvantages foreign competitors (e.g., Chinese producers like JinkoSolar)?

• For Evidence Gathering & Victim Identification (FOC DAM):

  • A potential client, a UK-based aerospace manufacturer like BAE Systems or Rolls-Royce, claims a new “Buy American” provision is harming their business. Can we use GTA to find the specific US policy intervention, its implementation date, and the specific products it affects?
  • Which developing nations in Africa have been most affected by EU agricultural tariffs or SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) measures in the last five years? This helps us identify potential government clients for a systemic challenge, aligning with the strategy to “liaise with… blocks of african nations”.¹

4. The COCOO-GTA Strategic Playbook: A Model for Action

The following playbooks provide standardized workflows for using GTA to generate high-value international cases.

Playbook A: The “Illegal Barrier” Hunter

• Objective: To systematically identify a specific, actionable, and illegal trade barrier that can serve as the cornerstone of a USP.
• Execution:
  1. Select Target: In the GTA Data Center, begin by selecting the pre-defined curated dataset: “Harmful Trade Policy Measures”.²
  2. Define the Adversary: Use the Implementing Jurisdictions filter to select a major economic bloc known for sophisticated protectionism (e.g., “United States” or “European Union”).²
  3. Define the Victim Profile: Use the Affected Jurisdictions filter to select a country or group of countries whose industries are likely to be harmed and who might be receptive to a USP (e.g., “Brazil,” “Vietnam,” or the “African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States”).²
  4. Narrow the Sector: Use the Affected Sectors filter to focus on a high-value industry (e.g., “Chemicals,” “Pharmaceuticals,” “Machinery and equipment”).²
  5. Analyze the Intervention: Review the resulting list of harmful interventions. Look for non-tariff barriers like discriminatory regulations, local content requirements, or complex certification procedures, as these are often more legally vulnerable than simple tariffs.
• Strategic Outcome: This playbook moves beyond generic complaints about protectionism to identify a specific policy, by a specific country, harming a specific sector, at a specific time. This is the “smoking gun” needed to initiate the USP-to-WTO pipeline.

Playbook B: The “USP Origination Engine”

• Objective: To convert the intelligence from Playbook A into the core of a compelling Unsolicited Proposal for a national government.
• Execution:
  1. Identify the Barrier: Using Playbook A, isolate a single, powerful case. Example: A new EU regulation that requires all imported medical devices to use a specific type of packaging material that is only produced by two German companies, effectively blocking imports from a major Israeli producer like Medtronic.
  2. Identify the Legal Violation: Frame the barrier as a clear violation of international trade law. Example: “This measure appears to be a de facto technical barrier to trade that discriminates against ‘like’ Israeli products, a prima facie violation of WTO GATT Article III:4 (National Treatment).”
  3. Quantify the Harm (Initial Estimate): Use the Trade estimates output type in GTA to get an initial calculation of the value of trade affected.
  4. Draft the USP Core: Construct the proposal to the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry. It will state: “COCOO has identified a specific EU measure (Regulation XYZ) that is causing direct harm to your national medical device industry. We have proprietary analysis suggesting this is a clear violation of WTO rules. We have the expertise to partner with you to challenge this barrier, leveraging data on corporate harm that government lawyers often lack, and litigate this case successfully at the WTO.” ¹
• Strategic Outcome: This playbook provides a repeatable process for turning raw data from GTA into a high-value, evidence-backed proposal that positions COCOO as an indispensable partner for any nation seeking to enforce its trade rights.