ST JOHN'S, An­tigua–The An­tigua and Bar­bu­da gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day said it had es­tab­lished a se­lect com­mit­tee to over­see the im­ple­men­ta­tion process, as the is­land seeks to sus­pend cer­tain con­ces­sions and oth­er oblig­a­tions with the Unit­ed States in their on­go­ing In­ter­net gam­ing dis­pute.

The sev­en-mem­ber "WTO Reme­dies Im­ple­men­ta­tion Com­mit­tee" (RIC), chaired by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Justin Si­mon QC, is re­spon­si­ble for di­rect­ing the gov­ern­ment's plan to build the frame­work nec­es­sary to sus­pend se­lect­ed US in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights to the tune of US$21 mil­lion per year, ef­fec­tive from April, 2006.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da has crit­i­cised the Unit­ed States since 1998 of breach­ing its com­mit­ments to mem­bers of the World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WTO) un­der the Gen­er­al Agree­ment on Trade in Ser­vices (GATS) by en­act­ing laws that pre­vent­ed for­eign-based op­er­a­tors from of­fer­ing gam­bling and bet­ting ser­vices to its cit­i­zens.

In 2005, the WTO ruled that the US had vi­o­lat­ed in­ter­na­tion­al trade agree­ments by pro­hibit­ing op­er­a­tion of off­shore In­ter­net gam­bling sites. An­tigua claimed that it lost US$3.4 bil­lion a year due to the US ac­tion, but the WTO award­ed the is­land US$21 mil­lion.But in its fi­nal rul­ing, the Gene­va-based WTO has al­lowed An­tigua and Bar­bu­da to sus­pend cer­tain con­ces­sions and oblig­a­tions it has un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law to the Unit­ed States in re­spect of in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights.

"I am very pleased with the com­po­si­tion of our im­ple­men­ta­tion com­mit­tee as it clear­ly has the ex­per­tise that we will need to cov­er all the bases in the de­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of our WTO-ap­proved reme­dies.

CMC