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HEALTH: Big Tobacco, Powerful Nations Derailing Treaty – Activists

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Feb 14 2003 (IPS) - Representatives from Germany, Japan and the United States are trying to block progress in the drafting of an international treaty on tobacco control, say health and consumer rights groups.

The text of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which should be completed in the next two weeks, includes provisions on tobacco taxes, anti-consumption efforts, contraband, advertising, marketing merchandise and manufacturer responsibility.

“The tobacco epidemic is killing 4.9 million people every year, which will double in 20 years if we do nothing to stop it,” says Gro Harlem Brundtland, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the agency promoting the treaty.

The final round of debate on the text will take place in Geneva, Feb 17-28, chaired by Brazilian diplomat Luis Felipe de Seixas Correa, who last month distributed the latest version of the document among the delegations of the participating nations.

But Infact, a U.S.-based corporate accountability organisation, is urging countries that have declared their commitment to “a strong and enforceable treaty” to remain firm “in the face of enormous pressure from powerful interests.”

Infact activist Kathryn Mulvey noted what she called the tobacco industry’s attempts to undermine the treaty, and “the continued efforts by the United States, Japan and Germany to block progress in key areas.”

According to the watchdog group, the three leading tobacco companies, Philip Morris, Japan Tobacco and British American Tobacco (BAT), have been working with “a few wealthy countries” to protect the industry’s interests.

Infact has been active over the last quarter-century, “exposing the life-threatening abuses of transnational corporations” and holding them accountable to consumers and society in general.

In a report presented here Friday, “Treaty Trespassers: New Evidence of Escalating Tobacco Industry Activity to Derail the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control”, Infact shows how the transnational tobacco companies have targeted African and Latin American countries “in its attempts to subvert the treaty.”

Of particular interest are “damning new documents”, recently made public, that detail Philip Morris’s plans to derail the FCTC.

In contrast, Mulvey noted that “African, Southeast Asian, Pacific Island, and many Middle Eastern and European nations have shown tremendous leadership in pushing for an FCTC that will reverse the global tobacco epidemic.”

A coalition of 41 non-governmental organisations presented a letter to Brundtland on Friday, asking for the WHO official’s cooperation in reinforcing the contents of the draft treaty during the upcoming final round of talks.

Seixas Correa’s draft is too weak to reverse the global tobacco-use epidemic, say the groups, which are united in the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT).

The chairman “seems to have given in to the demands of a handful of wealthy nations – namely the United States, Japan and Germany – and their powerful corporate tobacco lobbies, in some of the treaty’s most critical areas,” says the letter.

Seixas Correa responded that the text is solid, “it has teeth and is acceptable to the widest possible number of countries. If both of these conditions are not met, we will not have an effective Convention.”

Brundtland reiterated that the WHO supports an “outright ban on tobacco advertising, and I am confident that the text leads the way to this end.”

But the NGOs complain that the chairman’s latest draft of the treaty marks a step backwards, distancing the text from what the vast majority of countries are seeking, such as regulating tobacco promotion and prioritising public health over the tobacco trade.

“The FCTC process is veering off course,” charges NATT, adding that the new text makes significant concessions to a few wealthy nations where the transnationals Philip Morris, BAT and Japan Tobacco hold strong interests.

The anti-tobacco NGOs stressed the need for the FCTC to consecrate public health as a priority in the case of conflict with international trade or investment agreements.