May-13-2007,
Enough With the Excuses
By Hartley Henderson
Last week the United States government conceded defeat in the WTO dispute with Antigua, but rather than abiding by court's ruling, the USTR (U.S. trade reprentatives) chose instead to remove its commitment regarding gambling from the services schedule under GATS. This is the first time a country has simply disobeyed a ruling of the WTO, and it could have serious ramifications for U.S. trade in the future. I am in the process of putting together a detailed article discussing the ramifications of the decision as well as the reactions of other WTO member countries and various free trade experts. However, prior to publishing that article I thought it was important to address the United States' response since making that decision and issue an editorial about the blatant misrepresentation and half truths spewed by the U.S. government.
As soon as the United States issued the announcement conceding defeat, they were quick to point out that they hadn't intended to include gambling in the agreement and the inclusion was just an oversight. That is just not truthful. As Mark Mendel, Antigua's lawyer, pointed out in a statement:
"There is simply no basis for such a statement. When the schedules were drawn up over ten years ago, there was extensive debate, proposal and counterproposal from all WTO members in determining what commitments would be made. More than a dozen countries were able to expressly exclude gambling from their commitments, and many dozens more excluded the commitment in other ways. For the United States to say this was a mistake is just not true."
...more - (Dead link: http://majorwager.com/index.cfm?page=27&show_column=497)