Report accuses Big Tobacco of blocking treaty

By Ben Ezeamalu

Tobacco industry watchdog, Corporate Accountability International, and its allies, on Monday, released a report documenting widespread tobacco industry interference in the implementation of the global tobacco treaty (formally known as the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control).

The report’s release kicks off a string of grassroots actions in dozens of countries leading up to November’s treaty meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay. At stake are nearly 200 million lives - the number of lives the World Health Organisation projects would be spared by 2050 if the treaty takes full effect - and the tobacco industry interference remains the single greatest obstacle to this objective. During this year’s 10th International Week of Resistance to Tobacco Transnationals, which began on Monday, the anti-tobacco groups say that their actions will expose industry obstructionism in countries around the globe which they hope would build momentum going into the November meeting.

Showing solidarity

The Week is also an opportunity for the global community to speak out in solidarity with Uruguay; Philip Morris International is suing Uruguay for implementing a treaty provision requiring stronger cigarette pack health warning labels. “Big Tobacco first tried to bully the global community out of advancing this treaty. Now it’s attempting to bully countries out of enforcing it,” said Gigi Kellett, the Director of Corporate Accountability International’s campaign Challenging Big Tobacco. “Still, our findings indicate that the industry’s resolve to defy the law is matched only by civil society’s resolve to end industry intimidation,” he said.

The report cited some of the tactics used by the tobacco industry to undermine treaty implementation to include the donation of $200 million to the Columbian government by Philip Morris International following the adoption of treaty implementation legislation to “address areas of mutual interest;” the appointment of a former British American Tobacco executive, Kenneth Clarke, as Justice Minister - he would oversee a recent lawsuit by BAT and its competitors against a new law cracking down on tobacco product displays; and engaging in a string of lawsuits regarding tobacco product displays, packaging, and health warning labels from Australia and the Philippines to Norway. All of these tactics, the groups say, are in direct defiance of the treaty, specifically its Article 5.3, which deems such industry interference to be in fundamental conflict with the treaty’s public health aims.

Slow progress

The report also finds that Article 5.3 is being used to great effect globally to insulate the treaty’s implementation against the tobacco industry. Action ranges from Mauritius becoming the first country to ban all tobacco industry “corporate social responsibility” schemes to Panama’s prohibiting government agencies and officials from accepting tobacco industry contributions. “Those countries, large and small, that refuse to be intimidated, are emboldening others to follow their lead,” said Philip Jakpor, spokesperson for Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria and the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT).

“The success of the November treaty meeting will be measured by the number of Parties that return to their countries with a plan to root out industry interference. Millions of lives are on the line,” Mr Jakpor said. In Nigeria, the Senate Committee on Health held a Public Hearing on the Tobacco Control Bill in July last year and the bill is still awaiting passage into law at senate’s plenary. Each year, tobacco kills more than five million people and 80 percent of those deaths are in low-income countries, where treaty implementation represents some of the first efforts at tobacco control.

One hundred and seventy-one countries have ratified the global tobacco treaty since its entry into force in 2005. Today, the treaty protects more than 87 percent of the world’s population.

SOURCE

Nigeria, others want ban on duty-free tobacco sales

- Law to end business as usual for tobacco industry lobbyists

GENEVA – As delegates from Nigeria and 167 other countries reach the mid-point in their final round of negotiations on a protocol to the global tobacco treaty aiming to curb tobacco smuggling, NGOs from the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals are urging governments to stand firm in their progress toward a ban on duty-free tobacco sales. The message is timed with Corporate Accountability International’s release of a new exposé, Smokescreen for Smuggling: Tobacco Industry Attempts to Derail the Illicit Trade Protocol, highlighting the role of the duty-free lobby in Big Tobacco’s efforts to thwart implementation of the global tobacco treaty, formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).

“Many delegates have told us the last negotiating meeting was more productive without the industry present in the room,” says Akinbode Oluwafemi of Environmental Rights Action Nigeria. “We hope this will clear the way for Parties to adopt a rigorous protocol at the end of this week.”

“Tobacco corporations have organized a powerful coalition of anti-tax and duty-free trade associations to try and weaken or derail treaty negotiations,” explains Corporate Accountability International’s Tobacco Campaign Director Gigi Kellett. “But governments won’t tolerate business as usual with the tobacco industry anymore.”

At a meeting with the press during the World Health Assembly last spring, Dr. Graciela Gamarra, a delegate from Paraguay, made a prescient observation: For tobacco control there are two eras, before and after FCTC Article 5.3. One month later the intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) for the FCTC Illicit Trade Protocol (ITP) made a historic decision. Delegates observed that over 90% of the people at the meeting with “public” badges, lobbying delegates in the hall and watching from the public gallery, worked for the tobacco industry. Legally bound by FCTC Article 5.3’s requirement to protect policy-making from tobacco industry interference, the INB closed the public gallery to exclude the tobacco industry. One of the people kicked out of the meeting as a result was Keith Spinks, a key coordinators of the Big Tobacco/duty-free lobbying effort for the past eight years. This week, Parties reaffirmed this decision.

“The decision demonstrates the strength of the legal obligations of the first corporate accountability treaty,” according Yul Dorado, Corporate Accountability International Latin America Campaign Coordinator.

Speed up tobacco bill, group tells assembly

The lack lustre approach of the National Assembly to the speedy passage into law of the National Tobacco Control Bill may cause the nation more tobacco related deaths, according to the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation.

The organisation made this call on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the coming into effect of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which had been ratified by over 168 countries including Nigeria since 2005.

Increased tobacco-related deaths

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), tobacco related deaths stand at 5.4 million people annually and by projections will increase beyond eight million over the next two decades, with the majority of lives lost in the developing countries.

The WHO insists that strong worldwide enforcement and implementation of the FCTC could save 200 million lives by the year 2050. Nigeria signed the FCTC in 2004 and ratified in 2005 but has been recording more deaths relating to tobacco, especially cancer.

"The fifth year of FCTC entering into force calls for sober reflection for us as a nation because in the last five years little progress has been made in domesticating the FCTC," said Akinbode Oluwafemi, ERA/FoEN's programme manager. "This has not been without a grave impact on the citizenry because within this period we have lost talented musicians, journalists and even doctors, no thanks to nearly no regulation of an industry that markets a lethal product in beautiful wraps."

Foot-dragging on the bill

Mr. Oluwafemi said that Nigerians are not happy with the slow response of government to public health protection, especially the way the tobacco control bill was neglected after the public hearing in July last year.

"We are further dismayed that there is an alleged clandestine move by tobacco lobbyists to compromise our law makers with the intent of thwarting the passage of the national tobacco control bill," said Mr. Oluwafemi. "How else can you explain our law makers' foot-dragging on the bill nearly one year after the public hearing? This action is anti-people and seriously compromises our democracy. Our lawmakers should stand by the people who have spoken in unison at the public hearing and abide by the principles of the FCTC which has reduced tobacco-related deaths in countries that have implemented the provisions."

At the fifth anniversary of the entry of the WHO FCTC, the convention secretariat organised a special event on 26 February 2010 at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva.

Margaret Chan, the director general of the WHO, said that recent studies estimate that full implementation of just four cost-effective measures set out in the FCTC could prevent 5.5 million deaths within a decade.

Fighting the lobbyists

Similar sentiments were echoed by tobacco control groups across the world. The Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), a network of tobacco control groups from across the globe, said that countries that have implemented the FCTC provisions like a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorships have gone a long way in reducing deaths.

"Tobacco use remains high in low and middle income countries and is increasing among women and young people... We have had five years of good progress on policy but deaths due to tobacco use continue to rise. Governments need to fund their policy promises to stem the tide of tobacco deaths," said Laurent Huber, the FCA Director.

Another group, Corporate Accountability International, warned about the tobacco industry's track-record of trying to water down on the implementation of the FCTC.

According to the organisation's director, Gigi Kellett, "In July 2009, during an international protocol negotiating session, parties identified and kicked tobacco lobbyists out of the process - a move made possible by Article 5.3., a provision of the FCTC which protects the treaty from tobacco industry interference in any guise. By that action, parties safeguarded the negotiations against the tobacco industry's fundamental and irreconcilable conflict of interest, sending a strong message to the industry."

The FCTC entered into force in 2005. Parties are expected to domesticate the treaty by implementing national tobacco control coordinating mechanisms, prohibiting the sals of tobacco products to minors, and taking measures to protect public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry.

SOURCE

Pass National Tobacco Control Bill now, ERA Urges N/Assembly

On the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the coming into force of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has decried the lack-lustre approach of the National Assembly to the speedy passage into law of the National Tobacco Control Bill, saying further delay in the passage of the bill may cost the nation more tobacco related deaths.
The FCTC which has been signed and ratified by over 168 countries including Nigeria came into force in 2005 and is the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to draw global action against tobacco-related deaths.
The WHO says tobacco-related deaths stand at 5.4 million people annually and projects this will increase beyond 8 million over the next two decades, with the majority of lives lost in developing countries. It therefore insists that strong worldwide enforcement and implementation of the FCTC could save 200 million lives by the year 2050.
Nigeria which signed the FCTC in 2004 and ratified in 2005 has been recording more deaths relating to tobacco, especially cancer.
“The fifth year of FCTC entering into force calls for sober reflection for us as a nation because in the last five years little progress has been made in domesticating the FCTC. This has not been without a grave impact on the citizenry because within this period we have lost talented musicians, journalists and even doctors, no thanks to nearly no regulation of an industry that markets a lethal product in beautiful wraps, ” said ERA/FoEN Programme Manager, Akinbode Oluwafemi.
Oluwafemi pointed out that “Nigerians are unhappy with the slow response of government to public health protection , especially with the way the tobacco control bill has been neglected after the public hearing held in July 2009. We are further dismayed that there is an alleged clandestine moves by tobacco lobbyists to compromise our law makers with the intent of thwarting the passage of the national tobacco control bill.”
“How else can you explain our law makers’ foot-dragging on the bill nearly one year after the public hearing? This action is anti-people and seriously compromises our democracy. Our lawmakers should stand by the people who have spoken in unison at the public hearing and abide by the principles of the FCTC which has reduced tobacco-related deaths in countries that have implemented the provisions”
In the February 26 anniversary speech, Director General of the WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, said recent studies estimates that full implementation of just four cost-effective measures set out in the FCTC could prevent 5.5 million deaths within a decade.
Similar sentiments were echoed by tobacco control groups across the world. The Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), a network of tobacco control groups from across the globe said that countries that have implemented the FCTC provisions like ban on tobacco advertisingand sponsorships have gone a long way in reducing deaths.
FCA Director, Laurent Huber, noted however, that “tobacco use remains high in low and middle income countries and is increasing among women and young people...We have had five years of good progress on policy but deaths due to tobacco use continue to rise. Governments need to fund their policy promises to stem the tide of tobacco deaths”
Another group, Corporate Accountability International, warned on the tobacco industry’s track-record of trying to water down on the implementation of the FCTC.
The organisation’s Director, Campaign Challenging Big Tobacco, Gigi Kellett, revealed that “In July 2009, during an international protocol negotiating session, Parties identified and kicked tobacco lobbyists out of the process - a move made possible by Article 5.3., a provision of the FCTC which protects the treaty from tobacco industry interference in any guise. By that action, parties safeguarded the negotiations against the tobacco industry's fundamental and irreconcilable conflict of interest, sending a strong message to the industry.”
The FCTC entered into force in 2005. Parties are expected to domesticate the treaty by implementing national tobacco control coordinating mechanisms, prohibiting the sales of tobacco products to minors, and take measures to protect public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry.