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Congressman DeFazio Demands WTO Terms |
 Things couldn't be more hairy in the world of internet gambling law, one day after another posing another link in the long chain that has become the UIGEA. Last week, US Congressman Peter Defazio (D-OR) issued a statement to other members of Congress asking that they join him in his quest to uncover what exactly the US Trade Representative's office has done in recent months in their settlements with the WTO regarding online gambling and poker.
So far the USTR's office has yet to clue America in on what they've done to settle a handful of WTO disputes around the globe. They state their reason for withholding the information as "a matter of national security," yet another ridiculous stroke in the government's blind anti-gambling position.
DeFazio, though, isn't standing for it. Here's an excerpt from his letter to Congress:
USTR has released a vague list of compensatory adjustments that include "U.S. commitments to maintain liberalized markets for warehousing services (excluding services supplied at ports and airports), private technical testing services, private research and development services, and postal services relating to outbound international letters." We do not believe that any of these compensatory adjustments could trigger a national security classification and we do not imagine a scenario in which these agreements could have national security implications.
According to many trade experts, it is possible that the settlements reached by the WTO with countries like the EU, Canada, Japan and Costa Rica might not even be legal, and therefore declared null and void, as such decisions should involve Congress.
According to Jefferey Sandman of the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative:
"Congress should have been consulted before the US agreed to these trade concessions. We hope that Mr. DeFazio's colleagues will join him in demanding more transparency, communication, and consultation from the Administration on Internet gambling. A non-discriminatory market for Internet gambling in the United States will restore integrity to the international trading system."
One downside in the whole matter is that DeFazio's reasoning for the demands isn't quite because he believes in online gambling. Moreso, for him, it is a matter of sovereign rights, and the fact that the USTR shouldn't be making such decisions on their own.
Here is the full text of his letter to Congress:
Congress should know why the WTO ruled against US internet gambling laws and why the USTR response is classified as "national security"
March 6, 2008
Dear Colleague:
The World Trade Organization (WTO) recently ruled that U.S. laws restricting internet gambling violate the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) Treaty. This is another example of the WTO overruling U.S. sovereignty. The WTO has pushed aside American morals and values in favor of free trade. The immediate impact is a $21 million payment of taxpayer money to Caribbean nation of Antigua, but the long-term effects are more severe.
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) response is to remove gambling from the GATS Treaty by offering compensatory adjustment. This process, known as Article XXI, requires the U.S to subject other business sectors to the GATS Treaty to compensate other nations for the removal of gambling. To protect U.S. laws that restrict internet gambling, the U.S. must sacrifice other businesses.
The U.S. has secured an Article XXI agreement with Canada, the European Union, and Japan, but has only released vague descriptions of the compensatory adjustment. To learn which businesses the USTR is sacrificing, a Freedom of Information request was filed and subsequently denied for "national security" reasons. There is a concern that the USTR may have been ambitious in its use of a "national security" classification to avoid any publicity of which new business sectors are to be subjected to the GATS Treaty.
Please sign on to the following letter to the USTR requesting a copy of the U.S. Article XXI agreement and a detailed description of the compensatory adjustments. Please contact me or my staff [contact details redacted] to sign the letter.
Sincerely,
Peter A DeFazio
Member of Congress
March 18, 2008 |
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