US Faces $100 Billion Fine For Web Gambling Ban 522
Stony Stevenson writes with the news that the World Trade Organization is seeking billions of dollars in compensation from the United States from their ban on internet gambling. The view of the WTO is that the US has reneged on commitments to the organization. "The disputed concessions arise from Antigua's victory earlier this year when the WTO ruled that the US violated its treaty obligations by excluding online Antiguan gaming operators, while allowing domestic operators to offer various forms of online gaming. Instead of complying with the ruling, the Bush administration withdrew the sizeable gambling industry from its free trade commitments. As a result, all 151 WTO members are considering seeking compensation for the withdrawal equal to the size of the entire US land-based and online gaming market, estimated at nearly US$100 billion."
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
In related news... (Score:3, Informative)
I dunno if the WTO's statement will help or hurt this effort, to be honest. There might be a backlash.
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
The WTO isn't trying to override anything - we're simply being asked to honor a commitment made under a treaty which we negotiated. Other nations that didn't want to allow cross border trade in gambling opted out of those provisions, the United States did not. The US has repeatedly argued that it was a mistake the WTO panels have ruled that the record of the treaty negotiation shows that is not the case and the US freely made the commitment. Don't tell me the government didn't have a lawyer read it before they signed.
For further clarification, the US Constitution makes it clear that international treaties ratified by congress become the law of the United States.
As for the meaningless cabal of US bashers - get a grip. We are the WTO. Without our commitment to abide by the treaties there will be no WTO. I really hate the cranks that point to organizations that the US was a key player in founding claiming that they're anti US just because they may disagree once in a while. I'm surprised nobody is claiming the Internet is anti US too.
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that the US allows online gambling internally, but won't allow the same thing from an external source. This is called protectionism and is a no-no under WTO rules. This is a particularly blatant example of it, too (usually it's done through subsidies or unreasonable import taxes so it's not so obvious - see sugar in Europe and wood in the US). Because it's so blatant, and because the US have been really aggressive about it (jailing people who run online gambling sites and requiring payment processors to not allow payments to online gambling firms) it has pissed a load of people off, because the US not only signed the GATS, but basically wrote it and pushed it hard. Suddenly don't like something about it and instead of trying to negotiate or giving in, they unilaterally withdrew an entire section of their economy from the treaty.
This allows all the other signatories with interests in that sector to claim damages ore recompense and if the US don't pay, the WTO can do things like suspend other countries intellectual property obligations to the US. Hint: how much of the US' current exports are IP and how's the trade balance.
The US will have to settle this, and being pig-headed won't be the long-term answer. Most likely, Bush is lining this up for the poor b*stards that are going to follow him giving the probability that the next administration will be democrat. Either that or he doesn't care.
Re:And (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not a Bush fan much at all, but I do think he got it right when he said essentially that respect for human rights are a fundamental aspect of freedom, and that U.S. policy needs to be dictated thereby. Trouble is, I don't think that the US or other corporations are interested in human rights -- they'd rather have economic slavery and virtual indentured servitude instead.
Re:Good! (Score:3, Informative)
Fine and if that were our argument it would have worked. The problem is THIS [youbet.com]
Re:Good! (Score:4, Informative)
Did the USA do this as well? I thought it was just the Brits. Oddly enough, the whole opium war was derived from restrictive trade practices from China. We (the Brits) wanted their tea, they would only accept silver as payment, so we sold opium to the population and would only accept silver as payment, that we then used to buy their tea.
Of course, then we just stole the tea and planted it in India anyway. I guess that would be an IP violation in today's world.
In the history of not-our-finest-hours, this episode was a real bitch.
--Ng
From the other side of the fence (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:4, Informative)
In the last war, almost all historians agree, Germany was defeated mainly by the huge industrial output of USA. In the next Sino-US war, just see who has the industrial capacity to out produce weapons to foresee the winner.
Well the massive strategic blundering of the Germans combined with the huge body count Russia absorbed and inflicted likely won the war. The American guns, tanks, and money supplied to the Russians helped. But it would have been a far closer shave if Germany stayed out of Russia, and Russia didn't threaten Germany so much.
Re:State Right (Score:5, Informative)
The Wire Act of 1961 made it illegal to place an interstate or international wager: And more recently they passed the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" as a rider to a must-pass spending bill, which makes financial institutions responsible for policing online wagering: The UIGEA is at the heart of the WTO dispute. The bill is intended to illegalize gambling, not by making gambling illegal (something they cannot do) but my making it illegal to transfer money to and from gambling sites and the banks they work with.
Basically, our goddamned government insists on sticking its nose in a place where it doesn't belong.
Re:Good! (Score:2, Informative)
cabal that consisted of the then current "G-7" was
involved in the Opium trade. Could be wrong though...
Learning comprehension is a skill (Score:4, Informative)
I repeat, Internet gambling has not been banned in the United States.
It is illegal to transfer money to a gambling site. There is a fundamental difference. In this case, United States Citizens are in effect throwing away money to Foreign sources. I'm a conservative, so I'm against the Democratic socialist view of "tax everything", but in this case the US government should be seeing something back.
Re:Good! (Score:3, Informative)
What the US is saying is it's legal for its citizens to gamble in places hosted inside the country, but illegal outside the country in places we have an otherwise unfettered trade relationship with. (i.e., if the place was hosted in Cuba, it'd be illegal regardless.)"
First, let me say, I think it should be legal...what a person wants to do with their money is their own right. However, let me see if I can correct some of your statement. Gambling is legal in SOME states in the US, not every state. Each state has its right to decide what is and is not legal with regard to this. It is a bit different in the US from other countries in that (although erroding) we are a union of independent states...and each state is mostly free to make its own rules. This isn't the same for most other countries...the analogous thing would be the EU...to the US.
I guess a way to do this would be...the US at the federal level could say, "ok" it is legal...but, it is up to the individual states as to whether their citizens could legally gamble online (not that it could really be enforced).
Looking at the whole picture (Score:3, Informative)
The money raised by the tariffs will go to the government's treasury, which means other taxes could be lowered. You aren't denying access to cheap goods, you change relative prices.
In this hypothetical example, Belgians would pay higher prices for beer imported from the US, but at the same time they could pay lower prices for beer made in Belgium. People working for American breweries would lose their jobs, and Belgian breweries would hire more people.
Re:Good! (Score:3, Informative)
Or state lotteries. Or on Indian reservations.
It's a bit more nuanced than that (Score:5, Informative)
Domestic vs. international law
The United States takes a different view concerning the relationship between international and domestic law from many other nations, particularly European ones. Unlike nations that view international agreements as always superseding domestic law, the American view is that international agreements become part of the body of U.S. federal law. As a result, Congress can modify or repeal treaties by subsequent legislative action, even if this amounts to a violation of the treaty under international law. The most recent changes will be enforced by U.S. courts entirely independent of whether the international community still considers the old treaty obligations binding upon the U.S. Additionally, an international agreement that is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution is void under domestic U.S. law, the same as any other federal law in conflict with the Constitution, and the Supreme Court could rule a treaty provision to be unconstitutional and void under domestic law although it has never done so. The constitutional constraints are stronger in the case of CEA and executive agreements, which cannot override the laws of state governments.
The U.S. is not a party to the Vienna Convention. However, the State Department has taken the position that it is still binding, in that the Convention represents established customary law. The U.S. habitually includes in treaty negotiations the reservation that it will assume no obligations that are in violation of the U.S. Constitution a position mandated by the Supreme Court's 1957 ruling in Reid v. Covert. However, the Vienna Convention provides that states are not excused from their treaty obligations on the grounds that they violate the state's constitution, unless the violation is manifestly obvious at the time of contracting the treaty. So for instance, if the US Supreme Court found that a treaty violated the US constitution, it would no longer be binding on the US under US law; but it would still be binding on the US under international law, unless its unconstitutionality was manifestly obvious to the other states at the time the treaty was contracted. It has also been argued by the foreign governments (especially European) and by international human rights advocates that many of these US reservations are both so vague and broad as to be invalid. They also are invalid as being in violation of the Vienna Convention provisions referenced earlier.
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Good! (Score:3, Informative)
The WTO was indeed created in the interest of rich nations, but that's not to say it isn't also in the interest of poorer nations. Barriers to trade are almost always harmful to all parties involved because they inhibit the most efficient use of resources. The driving idea behind free trade is that it is in the interest of all parties to trade freely with each other.
Agricultural subsidies are a sore point, and rightfully so. Free trade means free trade, and these sort of subsidies are a significant barrier to further lowering of trade barriers around the world. The recent addition of IP rights to the WTO is another shameful manipulation.
Re:Ten bucks says... (Score:3, Informative)
And the other 150 WTO members that would be making claims? Including China?
How much has the US spent failing to "bring democracy" to Iraq?
Re:Good! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Who wants to bet? (Score:3, Informative)
I'd guess you have more to worry about from a corrupt dealer at a real casino then you do from the house online.
Of course, online you have to contend with people running bots and colluding. But then again similar things happen in real life as well. I'm not really concerned with any of that though. The only reason why I don't play online is that the games are just harder to beat. The hands come so much quicker that the fish lose their money and quit much faster. In a casino, they tend to stick around longer and give me more of their money.
Re:Good! (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, I don't think it would make the top 10 of not-our-finest-hours. The opium addicts weren't really the problem but the government's attempt to stop the opium trade brought down the Chinese bureaucracy.
Now don't get me wrong, the imperial government was right in trying to stop it but it made apparent the rampant corruption, cliques and incompetence that had infested the Chinese bureaucracy over the centuries since the Manchu took power. Add to this the clear demonstration of impotence of the Chinese military and you had a recipe for disaster.
Doesn't mean the British were in any way justified to do what they did, but in the larger picture they were just the straw that broke the camels back.
Re:Wrong. (Score:1, Informative)