Statement from Kathy Mulvey at the Philip Morris International Shareholders Meeting

Good morning. My name is Kathy Mulvey and I’m the International Policy Director with Corporate Accountability International.

Today, as you trumpet PMI’s global expansion, growing revenues and profits, the lay of the land is shifting for the tobacco industry and has changed dramatically over the past ten years. The global tobacco treaty, formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), has been ratified by 164 countries, protecting more than 85% of the world’s people.

As you know, Article 5.3 of the treaty obligates ratifying countries to protect their health policies from interference by the tobacco industry. In spite of this provision, interference by tobacco giants like PMI poses the single greatest threat to implementation of the treaty’s lifesaving measures. Many of these tactics are documented in Protecting Against Tobacco Industry Interference: The 2008 Global Tobacco Treaty Action Guide, which we published along with allies in the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnational (NATT).

Last November, ratifying countries unanimously adopted a set of landmark guidelines to safeguard public health policy against tobacco industry interference. These guidelines begin by recognizing the tobacco industry’s fundamental and irreconcilable conflict with public health, and follow with concrete policy recommendations, such as:

•    Don’t treat tobacco corporations as “stakeholders” in public health policy;
•    Don’t invest in them;
•    Don’t partner with them for health or other purposes; or
•    Don’t accept their so-called corporate social responsibility schemes.

These guidelines are already making an impact. The Chinese government, which had nominated several tobacco corporations for awards in recognition of their philanthropic contributions, withdrew the nominations in light of the newly approved guidelines. Norway divested from the tobacco industry, dumping $2.1 billion in tobacco stocks from its state pension fund.

Yet PMI still doesn’t seem to get it. Even after the approval of the Article 5.3 guidelines, your corporation professed its desire to be helpful on regulatory issues.

Mr. Camilleri, I have with me today more than 500 petitions from people in 65 countries, saying that when it comes to tobacco control, the only way for PMI to be helpful is to let governments do their job, and stay out of public policymaking. When will Philip Morris International respond to the concerns of people around the world, comply with the global tobacco treaty and keep out of public health policy?