| NEWS |
| 27.05.2008 |
| Terms of US-Europe Online Gambling Deal Claimed to Be Disclosed |
According to a law suit filed early this week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the country’s government is illegally concealing details of its WTO online gambling deal with the European Union. It became known that Bush administration has concluded a settlement with the EU and other countries compensating to the US for its withdrawal from EU obligations, including gambling sector; however, no details have been disclosed by the officials yet, as this data is classified as ‘foreign government information’.
Earlier in 2007, US had failed to confirm its gambling laws to WTO rules , which was followed by WTO trade sanctions. On the other hand, submitting new U.S. service sectors to the WTO’s authority would constrain U.S. federal, state and local government’s ability to regulate in these sectors and expose existing and future domestic policies in these sectors to challenge before WTO tribunals, as occurred with the U.S Internet gambling ban.
The suit filed by a Public Citizen attorney asks the court to find that the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is illegally withholding the settlement agreement, as it may be worth ‘billions of dollars’ and have a considerable impact on domestic policy and economic affairs.
The Congress is another claimant pressurizing USTR to release details of the settlement, which was reached without their approval. Two months ago, Congressman Peter DeFazio circulated a letter to all members of Congress, encouraging them to join him in calling on the USTR to provide details of the settlement.
Currently, neither Congress nor the U.S. public are aware of the details of the agreement and whether it is in the public interest. There’s a concern that using terms like ‘national security’ is just a way to avoid any publicity.
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