IGN spoke with Mark Mendel, counsel for the Antiguan government, about the twin-island nation's latest victory in its ongoing dispute with the United States before the World Trade Organization (WTO).
IGN: What are your initial reactions to the WTO decision?
Mendel: It's a fantastic decision for us. I was quite confident we were going to win at this stage, but I thought that the WTO would probably take the easy way out and just say that the United States had done nothing, and leave it at that.
But what they really did, and they went so much further, was clarify the original ruling. Now, the United States cannot make a claim where they just have to tweak some minor horse-racing law, and that's it. I think that the ability of the U.S. government to spin the ruling in its favor is completely taken away now. I just think it's fantastic. I've been so frustrated over the past couple of years in trying to explain why we've won, because that prior ruling was just hard to understand. But anybody who reads this will realize that the United States is really in the box now.
IGN: Do you think that the United States will appeal the decision?
Mendel: I would assume that they would appeal, but I don't know that. I don't think they would have any hope of winning on appeal. I assume they would appeal to get more time, more delay, into the process. But what I'm really hoping is that, particularly with as good a decision as this one is, we won on every single point. There's language in there that is just fantastic. What I’m hoping is that, now, realizing that they're at the end of their options at the WTO, that they will be willing to sit down and have real negotiations with us at this point.
IGN: Can the United States appeal, or is this the "last stop?"
Mendel: This is really it. To have lost in such a comprehensive way--there is one more thing that can be done at the WTO, but what that would be is the Antiguan government requesting trade sanctions against the United States. The WTO does not have an army; it's a voluntary compliance organization. The WTO dispute resolution mechanism has been very successful. By and large, countries that have used it, particularly large countries, have gotten real benefit out of it. And so there is complete and utter respect for the whole system. So, you don't have any countries--and, in particular, the United States has never said, "We think this decision is a bad one, so we're not going to comply with it." I mean, they've always ultimately complied.
And the WTO agreements provide for, if somebody still has complied if they get to the state of proceedings that we're at right now, the offended party--being ourselves--can apply for retaliatory trade sanctions in an annual amount equal to the estimated damage to our economy based upon their non-compliance. We will be entitled to those; there's not doubt about it. It'll just be the dollar amount and the sectors we can retaliate against which will ultimately have to be determined.
We will be entitled to it, so if we make application for that--and I have to stress at this point in time that the government has not decided if they will or not--they are designed to get attention of the offending nation so they will comply. So, it's not supposed to be a permanent settlement of any kind. It's just supposed to spur the offender into ultimate compliance. The United States will know that, and they'll know that they're vulnerable to that. I can't tell you how many times people have said, "You know, you're a small nation." I mean, I've seen it in press reports today, these experts saying "Antigua has no clout; the United States will just ignore it."
IGN: Do you think the United States will ignore the ruling?
Mendel: Well, they won't ignore it for the reason I told you before: they have a vested interest in having the system respected.
And then, also, we can get trade retaliation in particularly sensitive areas to them, where even though it's not going to involve a colossal amount of money, it's going to be a bad thing for American business. If we did do that, we believe that we could get their attention. We're hoping that they understand that, and that they'll try to settle with us now rather than pushing it all the way to that point.
IGN: Is there a set deadline by which the dispute must be resolved, or is the "deadline" open-ended?
Mendel: It's kind of open-ended. We've won here, and if they appeal it'll probably burn up another three or four months worth of time; but when you come to that point, it's kind of open-ended. What most countries do in WTO dispute resolution: when it gets to this point, when the country that loses is really upset about losing and doesn't really want to change, they settle somehow. You start with negotiations, you start giving and taking, and virtually always, this is the point at which almost everything gets settled. Out of all the WTO dispute resolution cases, which are in the 300-range by now, very few of them get to the retaliatory trade stage.