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The U.S. Fights Back...and Looses

The United States is just bound and determined to find a way to get away with the recent foreign based online casino ban without any sort of negative action from other countries, but that is quite honestly just never going to happen. Not only is the World Trade Organization not giving in to pressure from the U.S., the entire global community is rallying together to fight the U.S.’s current actions that simply offend the sensibilities of the global community. The U.S. not only has refused to acknowledge that it doesn’t have the right to ban foreign companies’ access to the U.S. online casino market, but that it cannot go back and change a decade old treaty because it doesn’t like the promises indicated in said treaty.

The U.S. initially angered the international community when it refused to acknowledge the WTO’s ruling that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) broke trade agreements. Then, in a move that stunned most, the U.S. announced that it was revising the 1995 General Agreements on Tariffs and Services (GATS) to no longer include online casinos and internet gambling – and that way the U.S. would no longer be in violation. The U.S. justification for changing the agreement now? it never intended for internet gambling to be included in the trade agreements.

And in a strong move on the part of the WTO, the Organisaiton responded with this, "A specific commitment cannot depend upon what a member intended or did not intend to do at the time of the negotiations." Harsh? Not if you consider that the some countries signing GATS specifically excluded internet gambling and online casinos from the agreement, so the topic was on the floor, and the U.S. chose to not include the restriction at that time. So really, what justification is there for thinking that the country can change a treaty out of whim? It looks like the U.S. simply thinks that it should get away with the online casinos ban without repercussion because it is one of the most powerful nations in the WTO.

That isn’t enough to placate the rest of the global community, so until the U.S. chooses to license and regulate online casinos, the global fight will continue, with the U.S. in the definite minority opinion.

Antigua’s Ambassador, Dr, John Ashe, sums of the online casinos dispute and subsequent communications. "There is something clearly wrong with the concept that after a long, difficult struggle covering years of dispute resolution at the WTO, an offending member could ultimately avoid the consequences of its loss by withdrawing the commitment that gave rise to the claim in the first place.”