Antigua: Remember WTO Online Casino Ruling!
Published: Sunday, February 19, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
GET MOVING ON WTO ONLINE CASINO RULING, SAYS ANTIGUA
Caribbean island jurisdiction ups the ante in its online casino fight with the USA
The recent introduction of more legislation designed to ban online casino gambling in the USA (see previous Online-Casinos.com & InfoPowa reports) seems to have spurred Antigua into protesting that the Americans have done little to meet the WTO rulings on its dispute with the US over online gambling.
The island government's WTO representative has formally protested at the current efforts to outlaw Internet gambling and complained that the United States has thus far done nothing to implement a World Trade Organisation ruling against its current restrictions.
Populated by 67 000 islanders, many of whom depend on offshore Internet gaming companies for their livlihood, Antigua and Barbuda has been trying to build up its Internet gambling industry as a way to make up for sharply declining tourism revenues.
In doing so, it has had to take the United States to the World Trade Organisation over federal laws that bar the placing of bets across state lines by electronic means. Antigua challenged that ban in 2003 as a violation of service sector commitments the United States made when the WTO was formed in 1995.
Both sides claimed victory after the WTO Appellate Body released a final decision in the case in April 2005.
In a letter to US Trade Representative Rob Portman, Antigua's ambassador to the WTO, John Ashe, expressed concern about two US legislative proposals to outlaw the $12 billion Internet gambling industry.
"Each of the bills is in key respects expressly contrary to the rulings and the recommendations of the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization," Ashe said.
He also complained the United States had made no move to comply with the April 2005 ruling.
"As of today, with less than two months remaining on an 11-month and two week compliance period, to our knowledge no legislation has been introduced into the Congress that would seek to bring the United States into compliance," Ashe said.
Neena Moorjani, a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative's office, said, "The US is exploring a number of different avenues to clarify there is no discrimination – even outside of legislation.
"The issue is a very narrow one. ... The time period for compliance has not yet expired," she said.
The United States argued in the WTO case that it never meant its services liberalisation to include gambling, and that WTO rules allowed states to restrict trade on moral grounds.
The Appellate Body accepted much of the U.S. reasoning, but said that when it came to betting on horse racing, there appeared to be discrimination between foreign and local operators, which violated trade rules and had to stop.
