I. Nelson Rose Breaks Down WTO Ruling

Filed in archive Poker News on May 1, 2007

I. Nelson Rose penned a great article recently about the troubles the United States is going through with the World Trade Organization's non-compliance battle with Antigua concerning online wagering. The premise of the complaint from Antigua was the US allowed horse racing bets to take place over the phone and internet but not other forms of betting that were legal within those states.

Rose uses a great analogy of how law students in his class would receive an almost failing grade (he doesn't believe in flunking a student) for continually bringing up the same points, that the US is doing, and being told the same results of the argument over and over again.

The closing remark of his article may be the shortest portion, but it carries some immense weight to the conflict.

But what happens if the next complaint to the WTO is filed by the European Union?

Right now the US can handle Antigua's complaints due to a huge difference in trade, but what would they do in light of a sizable push by the European Union where trading from those nations is essential to the daily workings of the US.

Here's a small snippet of the article from PokerPlayerNewspaper:

The United States has failed again in trying to overturn the ruling that it is discriminating against Antigua's Internet gambling. Worse, by failing to admit defeat, the Department of Justice has now turned a minor legal problem, limited to the issue of interstate horseracing, into a major headache for the U.S. on all aspects of remote wagering, including purely intrastate betting on horseracing, dogracing, sports, jai alai and maybe even poker.

I would have given a law student a grade of "D" if he or she had done what the DOJ did. And that's only because I do not like to fail anyone.

Imagine a student turning in a paper containing a very weak argument. The professor gives the paper a poor grade and explains why the argument won't work. The professor then gives the next assignment: Explain what changes your client now has to make in the way it does business to comply with the law. The student now takes a year to answer. And, instead of stating what changes have to be made, the student says that the client is now in complete compliance, because it deserved to win.

This is what the DOJ did. It is hard to conceive of a lawyer making the same losing arguments - again - in front of the same judges. The original decision, April 2005, was not that bad for the U.S. The World Trade Organization ruled that the U.S. had indeed (accidentally) agreed to let in all forms of gambling when it signed the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) treaty. But, the U.S. won on the argument that it had to outlaw people betting from their homes and offices because it has reasonable fears that remote gaming will bring in crime and corrupt the morals of America.