| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
 Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:25 pm Post subject: CAFTA opens U.S. market to Internet gambling services |
 |
|
| Quote: | Int'l trade called a 'palpable threat to state authority and sovereignty':
We've asked NCSL if material from April's international trade seminar will be published and available for sale at its excellent Bookstore link. We'll post any replies we receive here. In the meantime, we note the Mar. 30/05 letter to ambassador Peter Allgeier, acting U.S. Trade Representative, from Sheryl Allen (R-Utah), chair of NCSL's Standing Committee on Economic Development, Trade & Cultural Affairs, regarding the WTO gambling decision. Here are a few key paragraphs:
| Quote: | ... USTR has indicated that if the United States loses the gambling case on appeal, we are unlikely to comply with the decision, choosing instead to alter our GATS schedule so as to deny countries like Antigua the ability to provide Internet gambling services to U.S. consumers. Such a negotiation process under the Article XXI authority of GATS will not be easy, however, as the value of the Internet gambling industry (estimated at $7.5 billion in 2004) might well require sizable trade concessions in other service areas. It is also worth noting that USTR’s proposed solution of eliminating U.S. commitments to Internet gambling does not address the potential for similar WTO challenges to the bricks-and-mortar casino industry within the United States. Additionally, the threat would remain that individual gambling companies located in foreign jurisdictions could challenge U.S. restrictions via the investor-state provisions contained in NAFTA, CAFTA and other trade agreements.
... More likely than not, the threat of international challenges to U.S. gambling restrictions will remain following the release of the Appellate Body’s decision. NCSL seeks a commitment from USTR for meaningful consultation with state legislatures both in the resolution of the gambling dispute and in future negotiations pertaining to international trade agreements. Such a written commitment would go a long way to assuaging the growing concern among state legislators that trade agreements do indeed pose a viable and palpable threat to state authority and sovereignty as is so vividly evidenced in this Antigua gambling case[. (emphasis added) |
|
What can you tell me about Internet gambling in the U.S. under CAFTA?
Good question. We note the following comments by Prof. Stumberg in his testimony of July 15/05 (scroll down to Key House committees get primer on int'l trade law):
| Quote: | | IGPAC (the Intergovernmental Policy Advisory Committee) also asked whether CAFTA would open up broader risks of a challenge based on its services chapter or the rights of foreign investors to use a CAFTA country as a base to challenge federal or state laws. USTR’s non-response to these questions indicates that federal-state consultations are not presently viable, at least as a public dialogue. The WTO gave ample basis for IGPAC’s concerns, and IGPAC’s suggestion of withdrawing the U.S. commitment is clearly an available option under WTO rules. (Note: Yes, that option exists, but the process makes it next to impossible to exercise. Here is how the WTO website describes the burden under the GATS link: Pursuant to Article XXI, specific commitments may be modified subject to certain procedures. Countries which may be affected by such modifications can request the modifying Member to negotiate compensatory adjustments; these are to be granted on an MFN basis. In addition, Article XXI refers solely to Security Exceptions). IGPAC has proposed broader and deeper consultation on trade negotiations. As the IGPAC reports make clear, state and local governments support expanded trade. But they feel that with greater diligence and an open forum for consultation, the United States can have expanded trade while safeguarding its tradition of federalism. |
We will be exploring the implications of CAFTA on the Internet gaming industry in the weeks to come. Please check soon for updates. In the meantime, compare the above with this post at the Wisconsin Trader, in reference to a desertnews.com story of June 30/05 by Jerry Spangler, Online gaming may recruit Costa Rica in its U.S. push:
| Quote: | | CAFTA -- unlike the WTO agreement -- has no "public morals" exception to traded goods and services that would specifically allow any of the 50 states to regulate the online gaming industry. Experts at Georgetown University examined a letter exchanged between the Costa Rican and U.S. governments, concluding it is questionable whether the letter would be legally binding in a dispute, and that it is therefore exceptionally weak. The letter states there is nothing in CAFTA that would prevent regulation of gambling. "The letter provoked a lot of mirth" among the legal scholars, Riggs said. "It is clear that Costa Rica realized it had a winning hand, and it agreed with the United States only to a point." |
The smart money's on Georgetown.
For more on CAFTA and Internet gambling, see the Public Citizen report of Sep. 16/05, Votes by Reps. Jim Matheson, Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop for CAFTA Grease the Way for Gambling in Utah, which states in the third paragraph:
| Quote: | Although CAFTA expands NAFTA to the Dominican Republic and five Central American nations, it is not only about trade. CAFTA contains 1,000 pages of international law that the United States is now obliged to follow thanks to Utah congressmen and others who provided the votes that passed CAFTA. Among CAFTA's non-trade provisions is a new right for foreign firms to provide gambling services within the United States and to use United Nations (UN) and World Bank tribunals to demand payment of U.S. taxpayer funds if these new CAFTA rights are not respected - regardless of existing, contradictory U.S. or state laws. CAFTA specifically requires that state laws, which would include Utah's gambling ban, be consistent with CAFTA's investment and other requirements. (emphasis added)
...CAFTA opens a new door to attack on federal and Utah gambling regulations by empowering foreign gambling companies to use UN and World Bank international courts to challenge U.S. laws, including Utah’s gambling ban, which they could claim undermine the special new rights CAFTA provides foreign corporations. And a CAFTA challenge to Utah’s gambling ban could prove more potent than the previous WTO challenge, because the trade pact governing the WTO does not include the special foreign investor rights and protections contained in CAFTA and permits only countries, not foreign investors themselves (as in CAFTA), to challenge U.S. laws. (emphasis added)
The new threat posed by CAFTA is far from hypothetical. First, under similar foreign investor protections contained in NAFTA, Mexico’s national gambling ban has been challenged by a Canadian company called Thunderbird Gaming, which claims that the Mexican government’s closure of its gambling facility violated its NAFTA investor protections. (View summary and documents here). That case is now being decided by a UN tribunal.3
Second, since CAFTA was signed in May 2004, many of the online casinos that once operated out of Antigua, a Caribbean island that has been a haven for Internet gambling, have relocated operations to Costa Rica, one of the CAFTA countries.4 Moreover, the world’s leading Internet gambling company, Sportingbet PLC, recently acquired ParadisePoker.com, a Costa Rican firm, for more than $300 million.5 By having a Costa Rican subsidiary, the European company can now use the new CAFTA foreign investor rights that the Utah congressmen’s votes for CAFTA have put into operation to attack Utah’s gambling ban.
By acquiring Costa Rican gaming operations, giant European firms now have a platform from which to launch attacks on federal, state and local gambling restrictions in an effort to secure an even greater share of the diverse and lucrative U.S. gambling market,” said Wallach. “This is a threat that was brought to the attention of all three Utah congressmen.” (emphasis added) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/posting.php?mode=editpost&p=175
Last edited by legal on Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:53 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Gambling 911.com
Spider-like Gaming News Source
Costa Rica Narrowly Approves Free Trade with US
Oct. 7/07
| Quote: | The online sportsbook haven of Costa Rica has narrowly approved a free trade deal with the United States in a referendum on Sunday that has split the Central American nation like no other issue in decades.
Hundreds of high-paying jobs in the Central American nation have been lost as a result of the U.S. government's passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which essentially bans many forms of online gambling. Costa Rica employs several thousand in this industry.
Fifty-two percent of voters backed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, according to returns from nearly 90 percent of polling stations. Forty-eight percent were opposed. The vote lifted Washington's standing in Latin America where the U.S. image has suffered in recent years after leftist leaders took power in countries like Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. It was also a victory for President Oscar Arias, the 1987 Nobel peace laureate who argues that Costa Rica needs to open its economy more as it is a small country with few natural resources. "We've decided to board the development bus," said Alfredo Volio, head of the 'yes' campaign. "A beautiful page has been written in this country's history."
Costa Rica was the only country not to have ratified CAFTA and the only one to take it to a popular vote. The deal also includes Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic |
Good news for Internet gambling? Maybe not.
View the following excerpt from the Section-By-Section Summary of CAFTA-DR:
| Quote: | Chapter Twenty-One sets out general provisions that apply to the entire Agreement with the following exception. Article XX of the GATT 1994 and its interpretive notes are incorporated into and made part of the Agreement, mutatis mutandis, and apply to those Chapters related to
treatment of goods. Likewise, for the purposes of Chapters Eleven (Cross-Border Trade in Services), Thirteen (Telecommunications), and Fourteen (Electronic Commerce), GATS Article XIV (including its footnotes) is incorporated into and made part of the Agreement. For both goods and services, the Parties understand that these exceptions include certain environmental measures. |
Does the exception mean that if the U.S. completes its plan to exclude gambling from GATS, CAFTA signatories will be able to apply for America's OUCH! case compensation or something similar?
Good question. We'll continue to pursue this inquiry. Please check back soon for updates.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=452#452 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
From our Caribbean forum:
How pleased is Canada with its GATS-slash settlement?
Our e-mail to Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada:
| Quote: | From: legal
To: FAIT Contact Us
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 12:56 PM
Subject: GATS-slash Compensation - Valuation?
I understand Canada has now settled with the almighty U.S. over GATS-slash compensation resulting from the Internet gambling dispute with Antigua at the World Trade Organization (WTO): (see above). Are we happy with this deal? Is there some sort of report indicating why or why not in addition to the method used to value the concessions? Has Canada made any of its negotiations documents available for public scrutiny?
I also understand that Canada once played an active role in the dispute as a third party but backed down - shamefully, in the view of many of us.
Can we assume from the above that Canada now supports the U.S. decision to effectively decimate tiny Antigua's economy?
If so, is this the sort 'playing field levelling' our potential CARICOM trading partners can expect from Canada if we sign the proposed free trade agreement currently enjoying promotion at your site? What about our potential CAFTA partners?
Are there any plans to allow actual Canadians (aside from Quebec Mohawks) access to Canada's domestic Internet gambling market?
How are negotiations progressing, if at all, toward Canada's entry into the EU? Green enthusiasts here would be most interested in acquiring Europe's energy-saving household appliances to say nothing of its excellent potations. |
We'll post any replies received here. Please check back soon for updates.
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=502#502 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
'Limiting damages to horseracing completely wrong': Antigua
The Antigua Sun
Lawyer remains hopeful in ongoing gaming dispute
By Patricia Campbell
Feb. 13/08
| Quote: | Antigua and Barbuda’s attorney at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Mark Mendel says he does not expect December’s disappointing US$21 million arbitrated award to affect the results of a second arbitration process between the two countries. Late last month Antigua and Barbuda filed a notice at the WTO requesting arbitration on the issue of the US declaration that it is withdrawing from its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitment that allows trade access in respect of remote gaming.
In the first arbitration process, Antigua and Barbuda’s efforts to claim US$3.4 billion in sanctions against the US in the remote gaming trade dispute was unsuccessful, after the arbitrator limited compensation consideration to horse racing rather than the entire spectrum of online gambling activities.
... “It is pretty much the opinion of WTO experts and other country delegations that limiting the damages to horse racing was completely wrong and the experts I have spoken to believe that that ruling will not be followed because it is so completely wrong,” (Antigua attorney Mark) Mendel replied. (emphasis added)
... Costa Rica also filed for arbitration on the matter, as one of the countries with which the US must reach compensation agreements before it may proceed with its GATS withdrawal.
Mendel told the SUN that the new arbitration process is likely to take a month or two to get going and several additional months of briefings and hearings before a decision is reached. ... “The reality is that they are just using the process as much as they can to try to extend things out and make things more difficult on us - as they are entitled to do - but we just have to be prepared for that and soldier on,” he said. |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=522#522 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Travel & Leisure
Magazine Subscription
The new Costa Rica
In the country that more or less invented eco-
travel, you'll find lush jungles, enormous turtles,
untouched beaches - and rapidly expanding luxury
resort developments. Julian Rubinstein investigates.
November, 2007
| Quote: | ... in 1987, ... "When (President) Oscar (arias Sanchez now in his second term) won the Peace Prize (for brokering an agreement among troubled Central American countries to promote democracy and end civil strife), we knew everything was going to change," Alvaro Ugalde, cofounder of the national park system, told me. ...
Visitors began pouring into the country, and soon, tourism leapfrogged bananas and coffee to become the country's top revenue-producing industry - it now brings in $1.6 billion a year. But the boom also created a classic tug-of-war between developers and environmentalists. In 1993, while Costa Rica was promoting itself as an eco-friendly destination, a well-regarded German environmental organization awarded the country's tourism minister its infamous Green Devil for gross mistreatment of the environment related to the construction of a multimillion-dollar seaside resort called Playa Tambor. And althouth an impressive 25 percent of the country's land was protected, ineffective waste management left the rivers so polluted that some raft guides now warn clients not to swallow the water. "People think Costa Rica is some paradise - they think we're angels," said Ugalde, who today spends his time lobbying the government to make the environment a priority. "But no, we're a devil like everyone else. ...
"We are facing the impact of having attracted so many people and investors to develop their ideas in a safe, quiet, beautiful country, but are they respecting the way we decided to develop?" asks Ana Baez, president of Tourism & Conservation Consultants. "It's hard to tell where it's going. ... (-- pgs. 228-231) |
| Quote: | | Over the past two years, Costa Rica's biggest industry has entered yet anbother phase: luxury development. Spearheaded by the commercial opening of the controversial Peninsula Papagayo - a sloping seven-mile finger of land that droops into the Pacific Ocean from Guanacaste, the country's northwesternmost province - billions of investment dollars have flooded in from hotel companies, including Four Seasons, as well as the likes of Steve Case and Ross Perot Jr. The airline industry is also betting big on the country's northern Pacific Coast: already 45 nonstop flights from North America per week land at the one-strip Liberia international airport in high season, and more are scheduled for 2008. As one might imagine, not everyone is in agreement about what this means for the future of the nation's ecotourism. (-- p. 231) |
| Quote: | | (Michael) Kaye (owner of CR's first and biggest rafting outfitter, Costa Rica Expeditions) had just flown to Tortugeuero from his base in San Jose in order to help launch a program to protect the local beach, which is the most important nesting ground in the Western Hemisphere for the endangered Atlantic green sea turtle. He was also here to meet an expert about new ideas for minimizing the environmental impact of the lodge's waste management system. I was even more impressed by this when Kaye admitted to me, as the night wore on, "Most of my clients don't really care about environmentalism." To please them, he had added a beautiful swimming pool to the lodge. But he had also opposed a recent proposal to build a road connecting Tortuguero to the rest of the country, despite the fact that such access would have drawn more visitors. (-- 274) |
| Quote: | Arguably one of the best-connected men in North and Central America, Alan Kelso has networked his way into meetings with CEOs and money men around the world; his brainchild, Peninsula Papagayo, is a multibillion-dollar work-in-progress worthy of an anthropological dissertation: a planned community for the international eco-jet set. I met Kelso in his ground-floor office, which abuts the octagonal stone-and-glass clubhouse of the development's Arnold Palmer-designed golf course (the next one is being designed by Jack Nicklaus). ... Kelso, the nerdy child of a middle-class San Jose family, turned out to be completely unpretentious. Unlike most developers in Costa Rica, he is a native, one reason why public criticism of the project died down. Kelso's enthusiasm was infectious. Soon, he was driving me in his SUV to one of the 17 beaches on the peninsula's 15 miles of coastline. ...
Thanks to its physical splendor, Peninsula Papagayo has for years been at the heart of the struggle between Costa Rica's environmentalists and entrepreneurs. Finally, in 1993, the government made a controversial decision to lease the property to a Mexican company with ties to Mexico's disgraced former president Carlos Salinas. Before the Mexicans could get anywhere, they were sued for multiple environmental violations. In 1997, the project's minority partner, Costa Rica's national beer company, privately met with Kelso to ask if he would consider buying the Mexicans out. Kelso had made his name putting together the Los Suenos Marriott, a highly successful property 140 miles south. In the past years, he'd turned down all such offers, but this time, "I didn't even have to think about it," he says.
For a sum he would describe only as the value of "maybe one or two villas today," Kelso bought out the Mexxicans and went to work developing a master plkan for the peninsula. He envisioned an exclusive, independent city. There was literally nothing on the land, so Kelso began planning and building roads and creating and hiring his own fire department, security, and emergency response network. He established a NASA-like telecom center that digitally controls everything from the water supply to electricity. "We have traffic mapped out for the next fifteen years," he says. Then he set about selling off pieces of the property to carefully selected "bell cow" investors such as Steve Case and Ross Perot Jr. - both of whom are building exclusive time-share villas - and bringing in a Four Seasons Hotel, which he knew "had a following of its own."
By the end of next year, Kelso will open a 382-slip marina, more than twice the size of any other in Central America. And he has hired the architect of Beaver Creek, Colorado, to help design a surrounding village, set to open in 2009. There are also independent homes for sale, some of which come with the option of service from the staff and restaurants of the Four Seasons. People like Madonna are rumored to have bought in. "I don't know if we are an eco-tourism destination, but we are environmentally responsible," Kelso says. He keeps his golf courses green in part using desalinated seawater, and rather than trying to skirt Costa Rica's law that all beaches remain public property, he runs a bus service carrying locals to the peninsula's shores. "We had 75,000 visitors last year," he says proudly. And whereas the Mexican group had planned to build 16,000 residential units on the peninsula, Kelso's plan is capped at 2,500. ... (-- pgs. 274-275) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=524#524
Last edited by legal on Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:09 am; edited 3 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 2:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
PokerListings.com
Earnest News Source
U.S., Costa Rica reach net gambling settlement
By Sarah Polson
March 16/08
| Quote: | According to the Tico Time in Costa Rica, the United States and Costa Rica have come to a settlement agreement with regard to the United States pulling out of its World Trade Organization obligations involving online gambling (GATS-slash compensation). ... the United States has offered Costa Rica greater access to other service markets, including research and development, storage, technical testing and analysis. This is similar to the settlements the U.S. has reached with Canada, Japan and the European Union. ...
"The agreement has been satisfactory for the country," said Foreign Trade Minister Marco Ruiz in a written statement. |
Link to this entry
http://www.pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=532#532
Last edited by legal on Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
From Impossible Odds:
Harper's Bazaar
British Edition
Alive and flipping
When you volunteer to help on a research project,
you'll get closer than ever to some of the world's most
endangered species - as Stanley Johnson discovered,
walking Costa Rica's beaches to help protect a new
generation of leatherback turtles
April, 2007
| Quote: | The harsh truth is that, in the Pacific Ocean at least, the leatherback turtle is critically endangered. Its nesting beaches, all around the Pacific Rim, have been turned into seaside resorts. If a female leatherback does manage to reach the shore to lay her eggs, she may be hacked to pieces by waiting gangs, or her eggs, once laid, may be ruthlessly plundered. Industrial fishing, particularly long-lining, has further contributed to the tragic decline in leatherback numbers.
Playa Grande offers the last best hope of saving the species from extinction in the Pacific. Miraculously, the big-time developers have not yet got their claws into this part of the Costa Rican coastline. The bright lights from hotels and housing developments, so off-putting to the nesting turtle, do not shine here. Not yet, anyway. The local authorities have now declared Playa Grande and two neighboring beaches a marine National Park, called Las Baulas.
The Earthwatch team at Playa Grande research station doesn't just protect the turtles and their nests; it runs a hatchery, too. If, during the course of their beach patrols, the volunteers find a leatherback laying eggs below the high-tide mark, they will carefully collect them and move them to the hatchery for safety. A leatherback at Las Baulas lays 65 eggs per clutch and seven clutches a season, and nests every three to four years. Every egg protected, every hatchling saved, increases the chances of a turtle surviving to maturity,' project leader Bibi Santidrian tells me.
A quarter of a century ago, there were around 90,000 mating female leatherbacks to be found in the Pacific. Today, there are fewer than 5,000. ... (-- p. 265) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=539#539 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
legal
Site Admin
Joined: 18 Aug 2004
Posts: 510
|
| Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 2:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The Second World
Empires and Influence in the New Global Order
Hardcover
By Parag Khanna
| Quote: | | But Central America is also becoming a laboratory for the potential triumph of hemispheric integration. The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has lowered U.S. tariffs, which should create jobs and raise exports as NAFTA did for Mexico. As the New York Times editorialized, CAFTA is "hardly likely to lift [the region's] economies into the 21st century, but it may be enough to lift them into the 20th century." At the same time, America's general neglect of the tiny markets of Central America and the Caribbean has allowed others to pick up the slack. Indeed, because American investors mostly seek large payoffs in countries like China, China itself has moved into Central America, building factories closer to the export market of the United States. America's embargo against its mini-nemesis Cuba has left the door open to China to become on of its largest investors (behind Venezuela but ahead of Canada), even as it occupies ex-Soviet spy posts and develops oil deposits, with Chinese flags flying over its rigs. (emphasis added) The case of Haiti is particularly embarrassing: The United States has occupied Haiti numerous times over the past century with the intent of stabilizing the island but has been unable to elevate it above its dubious distinction as the most destitute country in the hemisphere, located just several hundred miles from America's shore. Under UN auspices, it is Chinese, Chilean and Brazilian peacekeepers who have kept Haiti from a relapse into anarchy. One of the underemphasized benefits of globalization is that any small country feeling underserved by its large, wealthy neighbors can seek attention in the geopolitical marketplace. If America cannot demonstrate its hemispheric benevolence in its backyard, such leadership could rise northward from South America itself. (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added) (From Chapter 15, Mexico: the Umbilical Cord, p. 136) |
Link to this entry
http://pokerpulse.com/legal/viewtopic.php?p=579#579 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ 
Search 
Memberlist 
Usergroups
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
