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Corporate Accountability International: Europe Must Resist Tobacco Industry Interference in Global Tobacco Treaty 

Today at the European Parliament, officials are gathering for a Seminar on the Protection of Public Health from the Tobacco Industry. European interest in these issues is a welcome sign.

Tobacco is killing more than five million people around the world every year. That is why governments came together to negotiate the global tobacco treaty, formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). . . .

But the most serious threat to this groundbreaking treaty is the tobacco industry. Transnationals like Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Japan Tobacco (JT) are using their political influence to weaken, delay and defeat tobacco control legislation around the world. Allies like Environmental Rights Action Nigeria are continuing to expose how Big Tobacco's political power has particularly devastating effects in developing countries.

Fortunately, the global tobacco treaty itself, in Article 5.3, safeguards against such tactics. Health advocates and public officials around the world have concluded that the tobacco industry should not have a seat at the table when public health policies are being drawn up, and the FCTC enshrines this concept in international law.

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