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Marlboro Man Award goes to the Chair of FCTC Negotiations FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACTS: GENEVA -- Ambassador Luiz Felipe de Seixas Corrêa, the Chair of FCTC negotiations, receives today's Marlboro Man Award for producing a treaty draft that fails to capture the progress made at the last round of talks. The award, bestowed by the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT), typically exposes and challenges countries for espousing treaty positions that benefit the tobacco industry at the expense of public health. The revised Chair's text, released on 15 January, 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. "At the most recent round of treaty talks, we saw that the great majority of nations in the world are committed to an FCTC that prioritizes public health over the profits of transnational tobacco corporations. Rather than building on the progress made at the October talks, the Chair seems to have given in to the demands of the industry and a few obstructionist nations in some of the treaty's most critical areas," says Kathryn Mulvey of Infact, a US-based corporate accountability organization and member of NATT. Throughout the negotiations, coordinated global action to curb aggressive promotion of tobacco with images like Philip Morris's Marlboro Man has been seen as integral to the FCTC. When FCTC negotiators last gathered in October 2002, the overwhelming majority were strongly in favor of a total ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Only a handful of countries where the tobacco transnationals have major interests, led by the US, Japan and Germany, opposed an ad ban. Yet the revised Chair's text is reduced to a series of suggestions that fall far short of prohibiting tobacco promotion-essentially deferring action on this urgent measure. While the FCTC can and must require countries to improve national legislation, advertising and promotion bans are in place in some countries and have proven to be an effective way to stop the spread of tobacco addiction. Countries with tobacco advertising bans include: Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, New Zealand, North Korea, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Thailand, and Turkey. Inclusion of a total ban in the FCTC would support the efforts of many more countries to significantly reduce the spread of tobacco addiction. "The tobacco transnationals have used their political and economic influence to water down or defeat tobacco control legislation even in the wealthiest countries. Having come together to reverse the global tobacco epidemic, the nations of the world must not be limited by the scope of public health policies that are currently in place. For many countries, banning tobacco promotion at the national level would be much more politically feasible with the backing of an international treaty," says Bejon Misra of ConsumerVOICE (India), a NATT member. The FCTC also has the opportunity to subordinate commercial interests in a deadly product to health concerns. However, the current draft fails to establish the principle that public health takes precedence over trade in tobacco. At the last talks more than 100 countries were advocating treaty language that would prioritize public health when the FCTC comes into conflict with international trade and investment agreements. The revised Chair's text does not include any language that would prioritize health over trade. "As we enter into the final round of treaty talks NATT members are calling on treaty negotiators to ask themselves whether the Marlboro Men of the transnational tobacco industry can live with this treaty. If the answer is yes, then the world is in danger of having wasted years of time and millions more peoples' lives. Yielding to pressure from the US, Japan and Germany puts the interests of Philip Morris, B.A.T and Japan Tobacco before the groundbreaking opportunity to achieve the world's first public health treaty," concludes Mulvey. The winner of the Marlboro Man Award will be announced each day by NATT. The award is named after Philip Morris's notorious advertising icon because of the Marlboro Man's central role in spreading tobacco addiction globally. The image was designed by its creator as "the right image to capture the youth market's fancy&a perfect symbol of indepedence and individualistic rebellion." Philip Morris has ridden to the top of the industry on the strength of the Marlboro Man advertising and promotional campaign, which has made Marlboro the worlds leading cigarette brand. ### 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 todays Boycott of Philip Morriss Kraft Foods, Infact organizes to win!
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