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NGOs Call on Negotiators to Resist Efforts by Big Tobacco, US, Japan and Germany to Block Progress on tobacco Treaty in Final Round of Talks Infact Releases New Evidence of Escalating Attempts by Tobacco Industry to Derail Treaty FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACTS: GENEVA--With the final round of talks on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) set to begin on Monday, NGOs are urging countries that have demonstrated their commitment to a strong, enforceable treaty to maintain their resolve in the face of enormous pressure from powerful interests. The US-based corporate accountability organization Infact is releasing Treaty Trespassers: New Evidence of Escalating Tobacco Industry Activity to Derail the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. While urging delegates to remain vigilant to industry attempts to undermine the treaty, NGOs are also calling on countries to resist continued efforts by the US, Japan and Germany to block progress in key areas. "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. Meanwhile, Philip Morris, Japan Tobacco, BAT, and a few wealthy countries have been working to protect the interests of the tobacco industry throughout this process. This final round of talks is likely to be extremely contentious, but we are hopeful that public health will prevail," says Kathryn Mulvey of Infact, a member of the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT). Internal tobacco industry documents, made public for the first time in Treaty Trespassers, reveal that Big Tobacco has targeted certain African and Latin American countries in its attempts to subvert the treaty. Under the terms of a 1998 settlement with the US State of Minnesota, tobacco corporations are required to disclose documents related to US tobacco litigation. This responsibility includes maintaining until 2008 a website, onto which new documents are uploaded regularly. Damning new documents loaded within the last few months, including memos from as recently as 1999, expose new details of Philip Morris's plan to thwart the FCTC. "As part of a massive public relations campaign to improve its tarnished image, Philip Morris (now Altria) claims to support the FCTC. Treaty Trespassers demonstrates that for all of its rhetoric, Philip Morris is working aggressively behind the scenes to derail the worlds first public health treaty," says Mulvey. With close ties to Philip Morris, the Bush administration is under increasing pressure to stop putting tobacco industry profits before public health worldwide. Earlier this week, at rallies in major cities across the US, high-profile public health advocates, university researchers, elected officials and activists urged the US to stop blocking progress on the FCTC.
Last month, Infact and NATT strongly denounced a revised draft of the FCTC as too weak to reverse the global tobacco epidemic. The latest treaty draft produced by the Chair of the negotiating body slides backwards from the positions advocated by the great majority of countries in key areas such as tobacco promotion and prioritizing public health over trade in tobacco. In a letter delivered today to Gro Harlem Brundtland, forty-one NGOs from more than 30 countries urged the WHO Director-General to help strengthen the text at this round of talks. "Rather than building on the progress made at the October talks, the Chair seems to have given in to the demands of a handful of wealthy nations-namely the US, Japan and Germany-in some of the treaty's most critical areas," says Mulvey. -30- Since 1977, Infact has been exposing life-threatening abuses of transnational corporations and organizing successful grassroots campaigns to hold corporations accountable to consumers and society at large. From the Nestlé Boycott of the 1970s and '80s to the GE Boycott of the 1980s and '90s to today's Boycott of Philip Morris's Kraft Foods, Infact organizes to win!
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