Mark Mendel, the attorney for Antigua, was recently interviewed in The Register, and he had some interesting things to say ... here's a link to the full interview, and some quotes follow below.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07...ua_wto_mendel/

We are no doubt headed to an arbitration to determine the trade concessions that Antigua can levy against the United States until it complies with the decision - or until we can finally negotiate a fair settlement. That process will start in September probably. The trade concessions process is provided for in the WTO's rules in order to make a hesitant dispute loser to speed up the compliance process. It has not been used very much, because generally losers either comply or they negotiate reasonable settlements. Here, the United States has done neither, so we really have no choice but to see what type of sanctions we can get and whether these sanctions can motivate the American government to act.
Given the massive prevalence of gambling in the United States, this "moral issue" thing is simply a red herring. It really is amazing that the United States is willing to risk the sanctity of the WTO's dispute resolution process on this case. But then again, when I was assembling this case back in 2002, we didn't yet know just how intransigent this administration could be in virtually everything it does. Maybe that is playing a role here, I just don't know.
The US has really taken the nuclear option on this. I'm sure it's as hard for you to believe as it is for me - I mean, the US spent years negotiating GATS, and they were difficult negotiations. What is left of GATS if the US decides to redefine its own commitments? How far can other nations go in redefining their commitments? I really can't believe that the USTR would throw all that hard work away- there are probably some career guys in there that worked on those negotiations.
Although I could very easily be wrong, what I have finally concluded is that this case is almost 100 per cent about the DOJ. One or more DOJ members have been present at almost every meeting we have held with the United States over the past four years, at almost every WTO session - their footprint is big in this case. This may sound odd, but I think that this issue - remote gambling - has been hijacked of sorts by a kind of dated old crowd in the DOJ who are still lost in the days of Bugsy Malone and smoky backrooms, when gambling was run by the mob.

Seriously, the one DOJ guy who has been a lingering presence in this case from the beginning even looks and talks like he stepped off a movie set about 50s-era gambling. I think this crowd has gotten the ear of senior DOJ officials, and are not going to budge one bit. And nobody else in the administration has had the courage, fortitude, or perhaps just the interest to take them on over this.
(The U.S. has) now gotten the European Union seeking massive economic concessions, and if they thought that we were a problem, the EU is going to be a much more difficult monster for the United States to wrestle. While Antigua is going to have to work hard and be creative to find ways to effectively retaliate against the United States, the EU won't have any trouble at all. The United States is literally facing multi-billions of trade retaliation from the EU in all sorts of trade completely unrelated to gambling.