Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne complained before the United Nations General Assembly last week of the United States’ total disregard of the ruling 11 years ago issued by the World Trade Organization that the U.S. ban on Antigua-licensed online gaming operators being allowed to access American customers violated international trade agreements.
Addressing the 70th session of the U.N. General Assembly Debate, Browne complained that the U.S. has not responded in any meaningful way to the 2003 WTO ruling that the U.S. refusal to allow U.S.-facing websites in Antigua to do business was a breach in U.S. trade obligations. The ruling held that the U.S. could not block international online operators while simultaneously permitting online wagering by U.S. horse-racing bettors.
The U.S. did not curb horse-race wagering, and has not changed its stance on foreign iGaming sites, even though the federal Justice Department has ruled that sports wagering is the only form of online gambling that is technically illegal.
The WTO ruling also ordered the U.S. to pay $21 million in penalties annually to Antigua as compensation for the lost wagering income. The U.S. has paid nothing—the running tab is more than $200 million.
In addressing the U.N., Browne said the U.S. refusal to recognize the WTO ruling proves that when it comes to international trade obligations, “might is right.”
Lamenting Antigua’s inability to force “a larger and vastly richer country” to live up to its trade obligations, Browne said Antiguans “are entitled to conclude that the powerful continue to ignore and trample the rights of the weak and that might is right.” He even cited Martin Luther King’s civil rights maxim that “justice delayed is justice denied.”
Since taking office as Antigua’s prime minister last year, Browne has been trying to get U.S. officials back to the bargaining table to resolve the decade-old trade dispute over Antigua’s formerly thriving online gaming business. At the U.N., he said smaller nations should not have to suffer due to “bigger countries that seek to impose their will on smaller ones… (We) are not looking for handouts. We do not want to endure the indignity of begging. What we want is a chance to develop a chance to improve the living standards of our people.”
