More Countries Join The Tiny Caribbean Islands of Antiqua and Barbuda in WTO Dispute
WTO News
On Wednesday June 20th Antigua and Barbuda stated that the United States should face commercial sanctions in excess of $3.4 billion for every year that the US does not comply with the World Trade Organization's (WTO) ruling that the country's gambling restrictions illegal.
In 2006 Antigua won a ruling in the WTO against U.S. restrictions. Now they are asking the WTO for special authorization for specifically targeting U.S. trademarks and copyrights if the United States does not change its legislation, in terms of the gambling restrictions.
Besides not only now complying with the WTO's ruling on the matter the United States Trade Representative stated in May that instead of appealing one more time they will simply remove their gambling commitments from the schedule of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). GATS purpose is to open services for competition internationally. Every country that takes part has their own schedule of the services the country will or will not include.
When the United States came up with the GATS schedule back in 1993 it did not exclude the form of remote gambling from sector 10, Recreational, Cultural, and Sporting Services. But it was the case that many countries did. Currently United States Trade Representative is stating that they made an error and did non know that remote gambling would be an issue later in time. But in the meantime remote gambling was already in existence in the United States in some form. In addition the U.S. knew the GATS's schedule of other countries and, more than likely, had knowledge that some countries had excluded remote gambling and some countries had not excluded it.
The announcement that was made on Wednesday June 20th in no way means that online poker will become legal again. But it is a step in that direction. If it is the case that corporations in the United States see the chance of their intellectual property being taken hostage they may pressure the U.S. Government to correct the error they made with the legislation the U.S. passed in October of 2006. If the corporations pressure the government it may mean that online gambling may become legal again in the United States.