In other words, it would start ignoring certain copyright and patent rules. What could they do to punish the U.S.? Antigua’s proposed solution was to “suspend obligations” in the area of TRIPs. laws restricting Internet gambling violated the trade in services provisions of the WTO. The tariffs imposed by a country with a small economy don’t cover enough trade to sting, so it just doesn’t work.īack in 2007, the tiny islands prevailed in trade court against the U.S., successfully arguing that U.S. But the problem is much worse when you are a tiny economy and you are trying to inflict pain on a giant one. But how can a small state effectively retaliate against a big state? “Suspending obligations” by raising tariffs is, as any economist will tell you, like shooting yourself in the foot – higher tariffs just raise the prices of goods and take money out of consumers’ wallets. So how is that Antigua and Barbuda get to play Napster? While TRIPs has generally worked as intended (at least for the U.S.), one of the problems with the dispute settlement system is that it works great when big states win. The resulting agreement, known as TRIPs (for “Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property”) was big news that forced a lot of states to upgrade their IP laws. could use the same dispute system to attack that problem. If a member state (and basically every significant economy is a member) wasn’t protecting IP adequately, the U.S.

wanted was better protection of intellectual property. gets to retaliate–by, for example, increasing tariffs on Japanese goods up to the amount of harm Japan was causing. takes Japan to trade court and wins, Japan has to stop doing whatever bad thing it was doing. And it would work by allowing the winning country to retaliate against the loser by “suspending obligations.” The WTO has a lot of complex rules on trade, and the idea was to build a legal system that could neutrally adjudicate allegations of rule breaking. One was to create a serious world trade court. helped create the WTO back in the early 1990s, it had a few main goals. How is that possible? Because the World Trade Organization says so. Hollywood is abuzz with reports that the tiny islands of Antigua and Barbuda may begin operating their own national versions of the Pirate Bay, where individuals can cheaply, or even freely, download the latest films and TV shows.

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