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According to the Washington Post, Jay Cohen was sent to prison in 2002 for operating an Internet gambling site in the Caribbean country, but just before he was sent away Cohen learned that U.S. anti-online gambling laws just might be in violation of international trade laws. With that information, Cohen was able to persuade Antigua and Barbuda to instigate a complaint at the WTO. It appears that the tiny island nation may just be winning the fight – a fight that is turning out to be quite an embarrassment for the World’s largest superpower if it does indeed have to surrender to a country whose entire population could fit into the Rose Bowl. In 1998 Cohen, along with several other Internet gambling operators, was charged by federal prosecutors with violating a 1960s-era law forbidding the use of phone wires for gambling. Cohen, who was convinced that that law did not apply in Antigua, voluntarily returned to the U.S. to face charges and was immediately brought to court because of his Antigua-based online gambling business. Cohen was certain that no judge would uphold the charges. However, a jury ended up convicting him and a judge sentenced him to 21 months in prison. Just prior to the time Cohen started serving his jail term he received a letter suggesting that the U.S. government’s position left it vulnerable to a trade complaint. Cohen immediately consulted with his lawyer on the possible U.S. violation and his lawyer agreed that the U.S. might, in fact, be in violation of international trade laws. Years earlier Washington had pledged to open the U.S. market in “recreational, cultural and sporting services” to global competition. After Cohen notified the Antiguans, the country filed a complaint: “Do we not have a duty to our citizens to protect their jobs?” said Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua’s ambassador to Britain and the WTO. The United States, in response, argued for the need to protect “public morals and public order.” WTO member countries can ban goods and services that they deem harmful to their social fabric, for example the ban on liquor imports to Muslim countries. “Gambling and remote supply of gambling, raises grave law-enforcement and consumer-protection concerns,” the U.S. trade representative’s office said in a filing. The U.S. position, however, had a critical flaw in that the government does not ban Internet betting on horse races and, in some states, lotteries and other games. The Antiguans are pointing to this seeming contradiction in U.S. policy and are asking the WTO to declare that Washington is defying the WTO ruling. Many experts expect that Antigua will win again. Posted on: August 18, 2006
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