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.'"
Proper syntax (Score:5, Funny)
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<sarc>Yeah, but everyone knows that Irish music sucks so its just not the same as when people copy Brittney Spears.</sarc>
</comment>
Re:Proper syntax (Score:5, Funny)
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And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course a corporation uses it's influence to try to get favorable WTO rulings enfored with an iron fist, and unfavorable rulings delayed or ignored. That's how they're supposed to act. Ideally congresscritters would care about the people they represent, but it's hardly news that they instead care about they corporations that they represent.
I disagree that the "US government considers themselves to be kings of the world and that their laws and points of view should prevail over everything and everyone else", as the "US government" isn't a person, it's composed of people who are just trying to do what's best for their campaign contributers.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hypocritical for representatives of the US government to lambaste other countries for WTO "violations", when the US Government turns a blind eye to infringement happening in their own country.
Either the US government is for strict interpretation and enforcement or it's not. Pick one.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Funny)
It's hypocritical for representatives of the US government to lambaste other countries for WTO "violations", when the US Government turns a blind eye to infringement happening in their own country.
In the words of our Vice President: So?
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Funny)
I overheard a chance conversation between Dick Cheney and (MP&RI)AA's consiglieres, and they're worried about recent evidence that Antigua has nearly completed a WMD program of some kind (probably something to do with coconuts; dangerous biological weapons, those coconuts) and must be brought to compliance.
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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:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd say the difference between these two concepts is getting smaller every year, with the campaining system as it is and the two corporation backed political families Bush and Clinton.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
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: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, Insightful)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Insightful)
The British media is complicit. Even the BBC had an article recently about how bus companies have to force their passengers to change buses on long-distance routes "because of crazy EU law".
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just saying that every country who is in a position to force agreements to their advantage, does. Canada is stuck hoping that people are fair because they're usually the little guy trading with the big guy - you get stuck playing with the big guy's rules.
It sucks, but it's the way things are, and don't think for a minute it wouldn't be reversed if Canada were the more powerful trading partner. It's not "The US is Evil," it's "Everyone's Evil, but the US is Evil *and* powerful."
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Above all else, the US government is obligated to obey by the rule of law.
I hope I've managed to put this into better context for you. To reiterate:
Legal: US may do.
Illegal: US MAY NOT DO.
One more time: No. The answer to illegal requests is always no, and it doesn't matter who the fuck is asking. If it does, it's a crime.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Interesting)
The US may want to reconsider its behavior. It's failing dollar, failing industries and general economic decline means WTO-sanctioned actions against it may in the future have a far more potent result. Today it's tiny little guys like Antigua, but imagine if China or the EU were given similar favorable rulings. It could devastate already-ailing industries.
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I thought Bush and Cheney already classified constitution as toilet paper in their speeches about 2 years ago.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you could explain just which part of that article you're talking about. Because I can't see it.
Which part of that requires, or even condones, being an amoral asshole? So many MBA types think they have a licence to kill by just saying "Fiduciary duty compels me toRe: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.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really interesting case, in that the U.S. is using a related WTO ruling on this matter to ignore the NAFTA Extraordinary Challenge Committee (ECC) ruling. So, WTO rulings are welcomed on one hand, and ignored on another.
http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/05-09-07/story4.htm [ictsd.org]This approach makes it pretty hard to deny assertions that trans-national trade agreements are welcome in the United States, as long as they are favourable; if not, fsck them. This isn't free trade, it is using free trade as a means to remove trade restrictions viewed as punitive or restrictive against U.S. trade.
In my experience, this speaks directly to opposition in Canada against free trade agreements. The folks I argue out the problems of the world over scotch and beer with are not so much against free trade, but rather are skeptical as to whether 'free' has bi-directional meaning in practise.
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No, it's a glad truth.
The Revolutionary War took place due to a foreign "government" trying to rule US citizens. The breaking point was taxation without representation, but mostly it was all laws without representation.
Of COURSE the US laws and points of view prevail IN THE US over anything else. We are a soverign nation. We have our own laws and our own courts. We aren't SUPPOSED to be controlled by every other country on the planet. Our SCOTUS isn't SUPPOSED to be considering ot
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Informative)
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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: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:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 t
The Republic is dead (Score:4, Interesting)
Biggest mistake in the constitution has always been the clause about treaties. Treaties should be at least as difficult as passing a law if not more so.
The constitution is "quaint" and is no longer the law of the land. USA is dead. What we have is USA Inc.
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Not justifying the US actions here, but occasionally foreign courts refuse [nytimes.com] to obey US courts - I agree that disobeying US court orders (whose opinions are valid through bilateral treaties) is slightly different from WTO obligations, but I think in general we can safely say that international law is not always smooth
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
The US is a sovereign nation with a sovereign government given the power to enact treaties with other nations. If you expect other nations to live up to their side of the treaties you like, then you have to stick to your obligations under the ones you don't like. The US is no longer in the position where it can violate whatever treaty it likes without consequences. This is not 1950. You aren't even the world's largest economy any more and the status of the dollar as reserve currency is the lowest it has been since the signing of Bretton Woods.
Simple self interest ought to be enough to motivate the US to abide by the agreements it has made.
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What does having one seat at the UN etc. got to do with economic policy? The EU negotiates as one block with the outside world where economic treaties etc. are concerned. *That* is what makes it count as a single economic unit.
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: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.
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Because, as we all know, the US was established _before_ that war, and everybody was a citizen of it, hence the fact that the later civil war against something called "The Confederacy" was a fiction invented by pseudo-historians to sell books. New Mexico and Texas were of course always part of that US, and not, as these pseudo-historians claim, Mexican territories at that time.
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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.
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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: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:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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True, but if you look at it that way, the justification for flaming the U.S. and/or Bush is diminished, and the ignorant masses won't be a
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Given the way this administration has been handling Foreign Policy, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone ...
This isn't limited to "this administration" (though they are worse than the last one), this is the USAs' default behavior, and not just for IP (see: lumber dispute with Canada, WTO rulings in favor of Canada, US ignores them).
I'll be modded down for not acknowledging the absolute divine perfection of America the pure and eternal shining beacon of holiness in all things, but the USA acts as a bully, has been doing for all my life, and long before, but talks as though they didn't.
Right, and that makes it OK? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Irish musicians are being treated exactly the same way that all other musicians are being treated here, and they are still free to sell their CDs here if people are interested in buying them. You'd be hard pressed to find an actual WTO treaty violation there.
Likewise the issue of trademark law is an internal issue to the US, these companies are still allowed to sell their goods in the US, they just don't get trademark protection if they're using trademarks which were owned by Cuban businesses. The US has the right to decide what is and is not protected under our trademark law.
Yes, we're being terribly hypocritical, but the WTO really and truly does not have the authority to force us to make those particular changes.
Those two issues pale in comparison to the kind of boot legging and piracy that go on in some parts of the world. The WTO itself has been guilty of abusing IP as a means of gaining compliance for things which it hasn't the authority to arbitrate in the first place.
I know that it's popular with the hate America first groups to make a big deal out of all this, but it's apples and oranges. The US is the leading exporter of IP, of course we're going to be concerned with piracy. But why is it that we can't at least acknowledge that these cases are hardly the same as the rampant piracy in some parts of the world and are hardly appropriate issues for the WTO to arbitrate in the first place.
Re:And you are surprised because ... ? (Score:4, Informative)
Hypocricy rampant in the Whitehouse... (Score:5, Insightful)
People are hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
Lack of Campaign Funding (Score:5, Funny)
Powerful Countries often ignore the rules (Score:5, Interesting)
It basically comes down to this. If you are powerful, you can ignore the rules. If you are not, you may well be in serious trouble.
Re:Powerful Countries often ignore the rules (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Powerful Countries often ignore the rules (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the problem lies in the fact that, 200 years ago, all treaties merely dealt with how countries dealt with one another, and never affected how a country executed its domestic laws, or treated its domestic citizenry. (Admiralty law, and how extra-territorial citizens were treated is different.) The entire conception of "treaty" has changed. Compounded by the dearth of Supreme Court interpretation of either conception, and it becomes an extremely difficult question.
That doesn't mean its fair. European countries don't have the same sort of Constitutional governance that America has (we're unique in both the role that the Constitution plays--shared w/ many post-colonial countries, _and_ in how rigorously we attempt to abide by it--shared w/ very few countries). So while European countries are naturally more willing to allow treaties to intrude on domestic governance, the US isn't for very significant political and historical reasons.
But rather than complain about the "rule of law", and the headaches it causes, wouldn't it be better to praise it? It's a double-edged sword. The European Commission often impedes in the Constitutional spheres of the European Council and Parliament. That's tolerated in Europe far more than it would be here. It might allow for quicker resolution of issues like this sometimes, but its not clear to me that its preferable overall.
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Germany is one of the greenest countries in Europe, even giving citizens a fixed rate on solar energy they produce. France produces most of it's electricity through Nuclear power.
Bad Moderators. Go to your room. No soup for you.
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: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.
Well (Score:5, Funny)
Who cares really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Paying for radio? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. How is Europe so completely backwards on this issue? Every pair of ears that listens to the songs is a pair of ears that listens to the ads as well, and those ads pay the bills. I would think the radio stations and music labels would be GLAD to have people listening to them in workplaces and waiting rooms.
If these laws were enforced in the USA, there would be riots, then it would be silence or royalty-free classical music only.
What bureaucratic knot did they invent to justify why should it cost money if you listen in a place of business when it's designed to be a free-to-receive service?
Re:Paying for radio? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, let's not lose sight of the point here, which is the double standard. We have some pretty absurd requests of other countries too, and if we expect them to go along with our absurd requests, we're going to have to go along with theirs.
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The only way around this is if every song played is live, and by the person that wrote it.
Regards, Jack
IP stakes are "increasing"? (Score:3, Interesting)
growing?
what fantasy world are these guys living in?
Sure the number of IP claims are going up, but the value to the public is clearly going down, and p2p isnt going anywhere.
They can claim "growing stakes" all they wish, but the voracity of their claims extend only as far as the walls of their ivory towers.
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Re:IP stakes are "increasing"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Any economist foolish enough to believe in "IP" as a long term foundation for an economy is not only incompetent, but dangerous to whomever he councils.
You either take action against outsourcing or you face the slides happening in the US economy now.
jobs get outsourced
government doesnt take action
rents go up, job opportunities go down, inflation occurs as your constant trade imbalance floods the rest of the planet with fiat money.
economies are based on production of real goods and services, not residual income dependent only on the willing
compliance of neighbors.
I'm not sorry to see this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, there is likely hypocrisy in this on the part of the US, but "do as I say, not as I do" on the part of the US is not news to anyone here. What I am glad to see, though, is that most countries seem to have some willingness to ignore at least some of the ridiculousness inherent in "intellectual property" law. The idea that ideas can be owned and hoarded is dying, and anything that hastens its demise is fine by me. How can one hoard ideas in a world where knowledge, information, and media are simply at the end of one's fingertips on a keyboard?
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I'm quite aware of the difference. (Though it's hard to see how one is not copyrighting an "idea" when even a snippet of a few notes or a few lines can be seen as subject to copyright.) Believe me, I hate the term "intellectual property" as much as anyone, because patents, trademarks, and copyrights are totally disparate concepts, and lumping them together just doesn't work. Here, however, the discussion is of patents, which are an exclusive right to an idea or concept, not just an implementation of it. (Th
Autonomy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Autonomy (Score:5, Insightful)
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The UN has really only 1 good purpose: for countries to express grievances against other countries. Sort of a world embassy.
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.
Thank you US government (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank you US government (Score:5, Insightful)
for the rest of us there's:
the dmca
local monopoly power for ISP's
rubber stamped mergers across the board (you have freedom of choice! you can choose "the x company" or nothing at all!)
the real id act
the patriot act
warrantless wiretapping and retroactive immunity when we sue for it
continuous streams of supreme court rulings which invalidate the crumbling constitution (see anything signed by souter)
the rise of the fourth estate, which is now so in bed with the government it may as well be state run.
Better Examples Please (Score:5, Insightful)
US trade policy is self-serving, we all know that. But couldn't the author provide some good examples to really make the point? These are pretty weak:
=> I would be willing to wager that most everyone commenting on this thread would consider that fair use.
=> Weren't the trade sanctions against Cuba put there and don't they remain there in part because of Cuban human rights abuses? The governments calling USA to task on this have companies which have "invested in Cuban business". The trademarks are not protected in the US to limit Cuban companies profiting from these trademarks in the US. If other countries want to sell their rum in the US under a protected trademark, they seem free to use a different trademark. Whether US trade sanctions against Cuba are moral or justified is a different issue from IP.
=> Legal gambling outfits in the US follow strict gambling laws that regulate, among other things, machine calibration, payout ratios, etc. Online gambling from other countries is outlawed in the USA because the mechanisms to ensure fairness can not be physically confirmed by government representatives.
China crisis (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. That explains those extensive sanctions against China too.
Oh, hang on
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Cuban human rights abuses
So you say Guantanamo Military Base is run by Cuban Military??? Wow! You are dumber than i thought.
Secondly, if US has the moral right to impose sanctions on cuba & iran due to huma rights violations, should it not do the same to Saudi Arabia (flogging, etc), Pakistan, New Iraq, Kuwait (where women are nit allowed to vote)?
Anyway, what's wrong with other countries demanding US play by the same rules they are asked to follow in the same place?
Remember Super 501 laws? Which allowed US to turn around and
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.
US will not reopen NAFTA (Score:3, Insightful)
No. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't own an American restaurant, but in Slashdot's constant whining about the RIAA, one of the whines I hear is that restaurants have to pay copyright holders to play music at their radio, and how the RIAA even pays people to go to restaurants and mark down whether or not their is RIAA music being played. I know that music venues with live bands covering RIAA music are responsible. So I doubt this example is even true.
And as far as Havana Club goes - I agree the US is in the wrong, and furthermore I'm not a resident of the US and think the Havana Club 7 is about as good as rum gets. However a further issue is that in the US, the copyright was granted to the family that owned the rum, before the Cuban government nationalized the factory and the family fleed to the US. Let me repeat: it was a family business that was stolen by the government. So I think it's reasonable that the family should be able to hold on to (and eventually sell) their rights to the name - or at least, I can sympathize.
The author of he article doesn't do himself any favors with his tone, rather than an impartial reporter he comes across as a whiny teenager. I guess samzenpus is new, and already I'm rooting for him to go the way of michael and timothy.
Sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
Problems like this go back long before Bush and Cheney (though they've refined the whole arrogance/prickishness thing to the status of art): one set of rules for the United States, another set for everybody else. And yet, for some reason, Americans feel hurt and a little bewildered when they find out how unpopular they are in the rest of the world. The comfortable answer is, "Everybody envies us because we're just so absolutely wonderful". The actual answer is that this kind of behaviour makes it easy to be disliked.
Americans have long made a point of passing themselves off as Canadians when traveling abroad (even to the point of wearing the Maple Leaf). Unfortunately they persist in acting like Americans, which is giving Canadians a bad name, especially in Europe. Or (as has happened to me in England on two occasions) you get politely grilled about All Things Canadian and eventually asked flat-out to show some ID proving you're from the Bigger Colder Place.
I'm not sure how to fix the problem when the overwhelming majority of Americans don't even believe that there is one, but it really needs to be addressed unless the United States wants to become increasingly isolated and ignored on the international stage.
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Funny)
The Canadian only has _one_ maple leaf on his backpack.
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Re:Veto Powers Abused too! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the kind of situation that currently exists internationally and it's not a good thing.
Re:Veto Powers Abused too! (Score:4, Insightful)
The will of the world is expressed through General Assembly Resolutions, but perversely they are non binding, whereas the UN Security Council dictatorship resolutions are binding. Then again, it wouldn't really matter if the General Assembly resolutions were binding, because powerful countries like the US, Russia, China etc would just ignore them. Since the major powers clearly have no interest in obeying the rules, it comes down to who is militarily powerful, and that is a very poor lesson to teach the rest of the world. The result of all this is that more and more countries will try to develop nuclear weapons in an attempt to join this "power club".
Re:There is no World Government... (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that this is significantly different than treaties,
You seem to be under the impression that the WTO is an organisation that just appeared out of thin air -- rather than, say, as a result of lots of countries signing up to binding agreements -- also known as "treaties" (such as GATT and the Marrakesh Agreement).
If you think it's a good thing for your country to abdicate the responsibilities it has itself assumed under the provisions of treaties it willingly signed, then you are simply wanting your country to be a criminal, or rogue state.
By the way, remind me never to sign any contract with you ...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Saying a treaty is different to a treaty is insightfull? - Sounds more like a government press release to me.
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but remember this one thing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We Should Really Give the WTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, cheating on sales tax is a lot easier than cheating on income tax. Imagine buying a $10,000 car - if you have to pay 30% sales tax, that's $13,000 total. Now suppose you offer to pay $11,500 cash if the dealer doesn't report the sale: you both gain $1500 and no one will notice, unless you want to keep the IRS around and let them audit every business's inventory.
Re:We Should Really Give the WTO (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll assume you have some idea of just how much of the US economy is based off-shore. It would not be possible to simply repudiate that part of the debt held by one country and not involve the rest of the international trade/banking system.
I imagine the first thing that would happen is that US liquid assets abroad would be frozen, and eventually confiscated to pay creditors. American-registered corporations could expect to have some portion of their assets taken, or perhaps their firm assets (oil pipeli