Online Gambling Award to Antigua Becomes Precedent-Setting

Now the U.S. finds it may have forced Antigua into a precedent-setting position.

Antigua has fought a mighty struggle against the United States, overmatched many times over by U.S. wealth, but fueled by the knowledge that their cause was just. Once the U.S. had unilaterally barred online casinos from doing business with its citizens, Antigua found itself a victim of discriminatory and protectionist trade policies that violated the free trade agreements U.S. represntatives had themselves hammered out.

Pursuing justice in the only legitimate avenue open to it, Antigua sues for billions in annual damage to its economy before the World Trade Organization. The WTO agreed that Antigua had been wronged, but somehow saw fit to award only $21 million in damages.

And still the tiny nation seeks to find remedy for the wrongs suffered, as the U.S. has alternated ignoring the award and footdragging over applying a solution. Antigua has prepared to follow down the only avenue which it finds available, denying U.S. intellectual property rights as a means to collect.

Now the U.S. finds it may have forced Antigua into a precedent-setting position. By opening the Pandora's Box that is intellectual property rights, Antigua may have shown other, far more formidable foes of the U.S. how to strike against the haughty country.

Brazil has used the state aid the U.S. government provides its cotton industry to show cause that Brazilian cotton products suffer unfair disadvantages, and the WTO has agreed, ordering federal aid to be stopped.

If the U.S. government does not respond, it could find much greater damages being awarded Brazil than Antigua dreamed of, and intellectual property is a likely path to be used to satisfy any claims. Soon, other countries may also attack protectionist U.S. stances in similar ways, causing great economic damage to the United States; and all because the country wanted to deny its citizens online gambling privileges.