US Ignores Unwelcome WTO IP Rulings 448
Eye Log writes "The United States is a big fan of leaning on other countries to tighten IP and copyright protection, but has a tendency to ignore its own obligations when it doesn't get its way. 'Two ongoing cases illustrate the point. First, the European Union is pushing for the US to change a pair of rules that it calls "long-standing trade irritants." Despite World Trade Organization rulings against it, the US has not yet corrected either case for a period of several years... Apparently, it's easy to get hot and bothered when it's industries from your country that claim to be badly affected by rules elsewhere. When it comes to the claims of other countries, though, even claims that have been validated by the WTO, it's much easier to see the complexity of the situation, to spend years arguing those complexities before judges, and to do nothing even when compelled by rulings.'"
Autonomy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
It's nothing new to Canada and our long-standing disputes over softwood lumber and other issues. The US even ignores it's own courts when it doesn't like the rulings.
This is rich (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty much the very group of people for whom this is an anathema are taking the opportunity to complain that the US has not implemented this draconian bullshit because, well, it's fun to say "the US ignores what it doesn't like".
The chuckle factor is definitely high here.
Re:Proper syntax (Score:3, Informative)
It's True (Score:5, Informative)
I have no doubt that the US will recover from it's financial woes. The world economy is changing though, and competition for resources is increasing. The US's negotiating position is changing as well. Instead of being the one of a few major buyers of commodities, they are now among many. Ignoring multilateral trade rulings as a routine is going to end as a consequence. At least if the US government is smart about it.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, that would be YOUR point of view. Canada's point of view is different.
That's why we have courts...in this case, the WTO.
And the WTO court found your point of view to not reflect reality, and Canada's point of view to reflect reality much, much better. Repeatedly.
And every time, the US effectively ignored the court ruling. Please, I don't want to start an argument over softwood lumber. I'm just stating the facts: the WTO ruled against the US, and the US did not adjust its behaviour the way they would have insisted on another country doing had another country received the same ruling.
The headline on this story would have been more correct by removing the "IP" from the sentence. "The US ignores unwelcome WTO Rulings" - of every kind. Maybe not ALL of them, but certainly some cases that are matters of much, much journalistic coverage. Many of these cases pre-date the Bush2 administration.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
From Article VI:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Technically you don't need an amendment to change the Constitution and the supreme law of the US, all you need is 67 Senators and the President to concoct and agree to a treaty with a foreign power. That treaty then has the same weight as the Constitution.
Retired NJ Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano has written a couple of books which touch on the subject of how the federal government has been able to subvert the Constitution. Check out "Constitutional Chaos" and "The Constitution in Exile"
Re:Usual Drivel (Score:1, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:2, Informative)
Ummm, well, actually, under the US constitution, treaties that have been signed by the administration and approved by the Senate are the law of land. Congress has nothing more to say aside from repealing the treaty.
One Word Response: BANANAS!!! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.ustr.gov/Document_Library/Press_Releases/2007/June/United_States_Requests_WTO_Panel_to_Review_European_Unions_Banana_Import_Regime.html [ustr.gov]
The EU has been consistently ruled against for well over a decade, and there is still no movement towards compliance.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:3, Informative)
Also I am sure that your paraphrase of that bit of law rather
egregiously misrepresents it.
There are plenty of similar examples from people like the
Americal Family Association and anti-gun lobbyists.
Re:Powerful Countries often ignore the rules (Score:2, Informative)
Plus, I thought
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh oh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Informative)
If the rest of the world ignored U.S. patents and copyright, then I'm fairly certain the U.S. would care. Same deal with what the U.S. is doing you know - it's not necessarily in the best interest of Europe or any foreign group to follow the laws of the United States.
Re:Proper syntax (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Informative)
That said, the current SCOTUS is full of hacks and ideologues who will support whatever their neo-con cohorts wish regardless of what the Constitution does or does not say. Score one for PNAC.
Treaties and US law (Score:3, Informative)
That Supreme Court case had to do with whether a treaty signed by the US could be enforced by the president.
Apparently, that particular treaty didn't have any legislation passed by congress backing it up and/or the treaty didn't include say anything about how it would affect the states.
"Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said that because the treaty did not explicitly say its provisions were binding, and because there was no legislation to make the treaty binding, the president could not on his own force the states to comply." From here. [npr.org]
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a real pity that no one, not even the WTO or NAFTA actually agrees with this claim. Of course, repeating lies over and over to get your way is a classic example. The reality is that your sawmills basically want to turn Canadian forests into private wood lots, to enforce their own model of forestry on a sovereign state.
Re:Paying for radio? (Score:3, Informative)
The only way around this is if every song played is live, and by the person that wrote it.
Regards, Jack
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:3, Informative)
Either you and lots of mods are dreamin', or you're talking about a different trade conflict with Canada...
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:1, Informative)
My ass it has. Canada was never repaid a good chunk of the money that was collected in penalties by the US. Settled by US standards maybe.
The problem is ... (Score:1, Informative)
Removing trade as a tool in diplomacy severely limits a country's options to respond to another country's actions with which it may disagree. Developing {bi,multi}-lateral treaties may be more work and take longer but is much more flexible.
WTO? Just say NO.
Re:Here's the BEEF!!! (Score:5, Informative)
I would rather eat raw Swedish chicken than to touch American beef.
Couldn't find any numbers regarding beef but look at the ammount of salmonella in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonellosis#Incidents_of_salmonellosis [wikipedia.org], 16% of the chickens had salmonella compared with Sweden where 1% of all the animals got it http://www.smittskyddsinstitutet.se/sjukdomar/salmonellainfektion/ [smittskyddsinstitutet.se], the stats are from the Swedish CDC, unfortunatly I couldn't find the numbers in english on the site.
In Sweden when ever salmonella is discovered the whole shipment of food is destroyed and if salmonella is found at a farm then all animals are destroyed.
Re:We Should Really Give the WTO (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Uh oh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:3, Informative)
Oh NOES! Anything but international law violations, what is Hans Blix going to write a sternly worded letter now? Sarcasm off, international law without an effective enforcement mechanism is little more than a helpful suggestion.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, you should. People have been "Godwined" out of calling American fascism what it is for far too long. Any time anyone dares to point out that the current state of the US government, with its collusion between corporate and political interests, is turning into the very definition of fascism, they're greeted with howls of righteous fury and snide comments like, "When we start rounding up all the Jews and throwing them in death camps, let us know." But fascism is essentially an economic philosophy, not a racial or religious one; the anti-Semitism that went along with the German variety was pretty much absent in Italy, where fascism was invented and named.
The funny thing is that the same right-wingers who mock people who call American fascism by its proper name are very quick to label their political opponents "Communists" or "Marxists," even though no mainstream American politician, no matter how leftist, has ever come close to proposing anything like true Communism or even socialism. (People who think the New Deal and its sequelae are socialist have no clue what they're talking about.) But the "moderate" policies praised by centrist Democrats and Republicans alike are straight out of Mussolini's playbook.
Re:Uh oh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:3, Informative)
The other parties to the treaty may still expect that the United States lives up to treaties it has ratified, even if the government never had the grant of power to enforce treaty obligations in the first place. But the Congress can't, through a treaty, give the Federal Government any power that "We the People" have not already granted to it in the Constitution.
The WTO treaty at issue here was explicitly written to be non-self executing, was agreed by all parties to be non-self executing, provides no enforcement mechanism, and hence requires Congress to pass laws to enforce the provisions, as they've done in many cases. In some cases, Congress has chosen not to do so, or has explicitly chosen to pass laws contrary to treaty obligations. There isn't a thing that this or any other Administration can do to enforce the WTO ruling in the cases mentioned in the article
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Informative)
When we signed onto the WTO, granted it was a bunch of democrats in control (1995), it was understood that limitations of a government provided a best effort. What the WTO panel has done is ignore that principle and make a rulling that was abstract to it. They changed the rules midstream. But you see, that's the bitch of the situation. Currently no other US company can can engage in interstate gambling which is the what is banned. Each and every gambling franchise needs to set a local point of business in each state and follow the rules of that state. Any foreign company is free to do the same. There is no discrimination going on here. What the WTO did was say your sovereignty and the sovereignty of the individual states doesn't matter and the limits of power your government body has doesn't matter.
(and yes, each and every state enjoys an amount of sovereignty which is the way the constitution- the only way the federal government gets it's power, set it up. We are the United "States" of America. A "state" is a country in every other context.) Well, no. It is piracy. The WTO has no power over WIPO treaties and has no power whatsoever to take property from citizens of any country. The WTO has overstepped it's bounds in what should be considered an act of war of Antigua chooses to act on it.
An embargo would more or less be a response to a threat. What will most likely happen is something similar to Cuba where the US hassles companies doing business with them and makes it illegal to do business with the country. Any exports containing pirated works will probably be confiscated and so on. And that won't be illegal because the WTO doesn't not have any power or provisions to enact concessions over private property or violate other treaties in place. The power to do so just isn't in any of the treaties signed or currently in effect that fall under the WTO umbrella.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Informative)
"treaties" with any country. And yes, it is important to call it a treaty and not a contract. Calling it a contract allows you to make the mistakes of not treating it as a treaty and taking the wrong context. I don't know if your purposely doing that or if you are doing it without knowing.
BTW, a treaty is not a contract. A contract is not a treaty. They share similar attributes but aren't the same thing. And even with a contract, there are limits to what you can negotiate away within a legal framework so even then is isn't as cut and dry as you want. Lol.. You are erring on the side of ignorance. Good faith does not, I repeat does not mean that all obligations will be satisfied. It means that an honest attempt at satisfying them will proceed. When natural and legal roadblocks prevent obligations from being satisfied, it is still Pacta sunt servanda because a party can only enter to the respect of the power they have or control. This is especially true in treaties peremptory norm is a fundemental process. There are very few new countries where you don't know the limitations of power a governing body has. With 200 or more years of experience no one entering the a treaty with the US should be unaware of any limitations on the powers of the government. If anything, Caveat emptor wouldbe the quote you are looking for. Like I said, this isn't the first time this has happened and it isn't only with the US.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:3, Informative)