270306 Tobacco industry's manipulation of international trade agreements to undermine cigarette health warning labels

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 4:48 PM - 5:02 PM

Eric Crosbie, MA in International Relations , Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
OBJECTIVE: To analyze how the tobacco industry used international trade agreements to influence tobacco control policies.

METHODS: Reviewed tobacco industry documents, tobacco control legislation, international treaties, and journal articles.

RESULTS: During the early 1990s, the tobacco industry became increasingly alarmed about the advancement of health warning labels (HWLs) on cigarettes packages. In response, the tobacco industry requested legal opinions from British American Tobacco's law firm and Britain's Department of Trade and Industry on the legality of restricting and prohibiting trademarks. The consistent legal advice, including from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), privately submitted to the tobacco companies concluded that international treaties do not grant the right to owners of registered trademarks to be exempted from any limitation or prohibition of using the trademark decided by a national government. Despite receiving this legal advice, tobacco companies argued that international treaties protected the companies' right to use their trademarks, only publicly referring to the registration, not the use of the trademark. The industry manipulated the interpretation to threaten governments over claims of expropriation and successfully convinced Australia and Canada to withdraw proposals for plain packaging. The tobacco industry delayed progressive HWLs, including plain packaging, for almost twenty years, and even though Australia enacted plain packaging in November 2011, the tobacco industry continues to assert these claims.

CONCLUSIONS: Published legal analysis, including industry's secret legal advice, confirm that international treaties cannot prevent national governments from restricting or prohibiting the use of trademarks in order to implement effective HWLs and plain packaging.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
To analyze how the tobacco industry used international trade agreements to influence tobacco control policies.

Keywords: Tobacco Control, Tobacco Industry

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have published a couple of articles on international tobacco control issues, primarily focusing on tobacco control policy making in Latin America. My interests include analyzing policy issues at the global level such public health, international political economy, and international law to effectively influence the policy debate.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.