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US Ignores Unwelcome WTO IP Rulings
Eye Log writes "The United States is a big fan of leaning on other countries to tighten IP and copyright protection, but has a tendency to ignore its own obligations when it doesn't get its way. 'Two ongoing cases illustrate the point. First, the European Union is pushing for the US to change a pair of rules that it calls "long-standing trade irritants." Despite World Trade Organization rulings against it, the US has not yet corrected either case for a period of several years... Apparently, it's easy to get hot and bothered when it's industries from your country that claim to be badly affected by rules elsewhere. When it comes to the claims of other countries, though, even claims that have been validated by the WTO, it's much easier to see the complexity of the situation, to spend years arguing those complexities before judges, and to do nothing even when compelled by rulings.'"
I really don't see the problem. Member nations are autonomous. Any compliance with demands from the World Court, the UN or the WTO is strictly voluntary for any nation. Their real authority is precisely whatever the member nations decide. That's not just for the US-- it's for any member nation of any such organization. Orders from the UN and similar groups really just don't matter unless they can back them up-- and they can't. I prefer it that way, honestly. The UN and WTO are a bit too socialistic for my tastes, but that's just me.
It's nothing new to Canada and our long-standing disputes over softwood lumber and other issues. The US even ignores it's own courts when it doesn't like the rulings.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The US has more trade agreements with Canada than any other country and in Canada's experience it is absolutely true. The US government's negotiators howl about DRM, our approach to health care, pharmacuticals, gay marriage, drug "leniency" etc, etc while ignoring rluling after ruling not just by the WTO, but by the NAFTA boards, and other committees that supposedly govern bilateral trade. Largely they do it because they can get away with it.
I have no doubt that the US will recover from it's financial woes. The world economy is changing though, and competition for resources is increasing. The US's negotiating position is changing as well. Instead of being the one of a few major buyers of commodities, they are now among many. Ignoring multilateral trade rulings as a routine is going to end as a consequence. At least if the US government is smart about it.
>>Canada dumps lumber in the US at subsidized prices
Well, that would be YOUR point of view. Canada's point of view is different.
That's why we have courts...in this case, the WTO.
And the WTO court found your point of view to not reflect reality, and Canada's point of view to reflect reality much, much better. Repeatedly.
And every time, the US effectively ignored the court ruling. Please, I don't want to start an argument over softwood lumber. I'm just stating the facts: the WTO ruled against the US, and the US did not adjust its behaviour the way they would have insisted on another country doing had another country received the same ruling.
The headline on this story would have been more correct by removing the "IP" from the sentence. "The US ignores unwelcome WTO Rulings" - of every kind. Maybe not ALL of them, but certainly some cases that are matters of much, much journalistic coverage. Many of these cases pre-date the Bush2 administration.
You are missing two things. First, the Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) specifically states that any treaty obligations shall be the law of the land, and so you are legally, according to the constitution, bound by WTO rulings since the WTO powers are granted by a treaty. Secondly, you are ignoring the fact that the USA is expecting US law to extend over most of the world and is attempting to use the WTO to enforce this. Since the principle export of the USA is IP, your economy would be in an even worse state than it is now if the rest of the world took the same attitude the USA does to WTO IP rulings.
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From Article VI:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
Technically you don't need an amendment to change the Constitution and the supreme law of the US, all you need is 67 Senators and the President to concoct and agree to a treaty with a foreign power. That treaty then has the same weight as the Constitution.
Retired NJ Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano has written a couple of books which touch on the subject of how the federal government has been able to subvert the Constitution. Check out "Constitutional Chaos" and "The Constitution in Exile"
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
It's a real pity that no one, not even the WTO or NAFTA actually agrees with this claim. Of course, repeating lies over and over to get your way is a classic example. The reality is that your sawmills basically want to turn Canadian forests into private wood lots, to enforce their own model of forestry on a sovereign state.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Remind me to send them a thank you letter. If you would have said Brazilian meat then I would have conceded a point.
I would rather eat raw Swedish chicken than to touch American beef.
Couldn't find any numbers regarding beef but look at the ammount of salmonella in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmonellosis#Incidents_of_salmonellosis, 16% of the chickens had salmonella compared with Sweden where 1% of all the animals got it http://www.smittskyddsinstitutet.se/sjukdomar/salmonellainfektion/, the stats are from the Swedish CDC, unfortunatly I couldn't find the numbers in english on the site.
In Sweden when ever salmonella is discovered the whole shipment of food is destroyed and if salmonella is found at a farm then all animals are destroyed.
"This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
There were quite a large number of people in the US that didn't want the US to join the WTO, complete with rallies and protests.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Dare I use the word fascist?
Well, you should. People have been "Godwined" out of calling American fascism what it is for far too long. Any time anyone dares to point out that the current state of the US government, with its collusion between corporate and political interests, is turning into the very definition of fascism, they're greeted with howls of righteous fury and snide comments like, "When we start rounding up all the Jews and throwing them in death camps, let us know." But fascism is essentially an economic philosophy, not a racial or religious one; the anti-Semitism that went along with the German variety was pretty much absent in Italy, where fascism was invented and named.
The funny thing is that the same right-wingers who mock people who call American fascism by its proper name are very quick to label their political opponents "Communists" or "Marxists," even though no mainstream American politician, no matter how leftist, has ever come close to proposing anything like true Communism or even socialism. (People who think the New Deal and its sequelae are socialist have no clue what they're talking about.) But the "moderate" policies praised by centrist Democrats and Republicans alike are straight out of Mussolini's playbook.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.