The Cellar - Against All Odds

Governments run lotteries, legalize casinos, permit horse racing parlors, and fear 69,000 citizens of Antigua and Barbuda for only permitting same.

From The Washington Post of 4 Aug 2006:

Quote:

Against All Odds
U.S. prosecutors put Cohen behind bars in 2002 for running an Internet gambling site in the Caribbean country ...

Never has such a tiny nation brought a WTO complaint against the United States, which is one reason the dispute has implications well beyond the issue of gambling.

A frequent irritant in international relations is that small, weak countries such as Antigua feel run over by big, rich countries such as the United States. That's especially true in global trade. For instance, developing countries say their destitute farmers get the short end of the stick because of the subsidies and protections that rich governments give their farmers. Just last week, negotiations to redress such grievances collapsed. ...

In 1998, federal prosecutors charged several operators, including Cohen, with violating a 1960s-era law forbidding the use of phone wires for gambling. Convinced that the law didn't apply in Antigua, Cohen returned voluntarily to U.S. soil.

"No judge is going to let this stand," he recalled thinking. But a jury convicted him, the judge gave him 21 months, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. ...

"The WTO gives the little guys clout, but it cannot guarantee symmetry of justice," said Claude Barfield, a trade expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

So the Antiguans plan to ask the WTO for the right to impose sanctions that would hurt -- namely, permission to copy and export U.S.-made DVDs, CDs and similar material. Hollywood is not amused.