Protocols, Guidelines and Study Groups

Illicit Trade Protocol

A protocol is a treaty negotiated under another treaty. For example, the Kyoto Protocol is a sub-agreement to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Parties to the global tobacco treaty have initiated negotiations on the treaty’s first protocol, to address the illicit trade in tobacco products.

According to the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), the illicit trade in cigarettes costs governments $40.5 billion in lost revenue every year, with losses falling disproportionately on low and middle income countries, and the benefits of international action are likely to far outweigh the costs.

There is widespread evidence that tobacco transnationals have benefited from—and even been complicit in—illicit trade in tobacco. Smuggling and other forms of illicit trade can open up new markets for brands like Philip Morris International’s Marlboro, BAT’s Dunhill and JT’s Mild Seven, and addict new customers with lower-priced tobacco products that have evaded taxes.

In the case of the FCTC, only parties to the treaty itself can be parties to a protocol. That means that the U.S. and other non-parties can only attend these negotiations as observers.

The third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on a Protocol on Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products took place from June 28th to July 5th in Geneva.

Click here to read our expose on the tobacco industry's attempts to weaken the FCTC and the Illicit Trade Protocol. (en español; en français)

To read the executive summary from our latest exposé on tobacco industry activity related to smuggling and the illicit trade protocol, click here. To see our flyer on PMI's presence during INB3 in Geneva, click here. Read our INB3 flyer in French here.

Guidelines

(Photo: Corporate Accountability International's Kathy Mulvey at the Article 5.3 Working Group Meeting at The Hague, Netherlands, Dec, 2007.)

Countries that have ratified the global tobacco treaty (known as Parties) are developing specific guidelines on how the treaty’s obligations should be implemented.

The COP adopted guidelines for implementation of Articles 5.3, 8, 11 and 13 of the WHO FCTC at the second and third sessions. The COP requested four working groups to develop draft guidelines and recommendations for implementation of Articles 9 & 10, 12, 14 and 17 & 18 for consideration at COP 4 in 2010.

Parties are now developing guidelines on:

Product regulation and disclosure [Articles 9 and 10]
Education, communication, training and public awareness [Article 12]
Demand reduction measures [Article 14]
Support for economically viable alternative activities [Article 17]
Protection of the environment and the health of persons [Article 18]

Parties have developed guidelines on:

Protecting public health policy from tobacco industry interference [Article 5.3]
Packaging and labeling of tobacco products [Article 11]
- For the first 40 countries that ratified the treaty, the obligations related to packaging and labeling are now fully in effect. This means that they must, for example, prohibit the use of deceptive terms like “light” and “mild,” and require warning labels—ideally graphic warnings—on at least 30% of the front and back faces of tobacco packages.
Banning tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship [Article 13]

Study Groups

Parties to the global tobacco treaty have also established a study group to explore economically sustainable alternatives to tobacco growing.

Though transnational tobacco corporations use sophisticated public relations machinery to claim that tobacco-related agriculture creates jobs and boosts economic development, the facts speak otherwise. Tobacco giants exert broad control over the tobacco production system, and have created a supply system that exploits farmers while assuring continued growth in corporate profits.

Even the World Bank, which favors market liberalization, has concluded that comprehensive tobacco control policies are good for the global economy.

Click here to read the World Bank report Curbing the Epidemic: Governments and the Economics of Tobacco Control.