Statement: Philip Morris International Annual Shareholders' Meeting, Gigi Kellett

 

For Immediate Release: May 12, 2010

 

Contact: Christina Rossi, 617-447-2540

 

Good morning. My name is Gigi Kellett and I’m the director of Corporate Accountability International’s campaign Challenging Big Tobacco.

As you know, this year marks five years since the global tobacco treaty, formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) entered into force. And today, 168 countries have ratified the treaty, protecting more than 86 percent of the world’s people.

It has also been nearly two years since Parties unanimously adopted guidelines that recognize the tobacco industry’s fundamental conflict of interest with public health – and that obligate countries to protect their public health policies from the tobacco industry. These guidelines are having an impact. But interference by tobacco giants like PMI continues to pose the single greatest threat to implementation of the treaty’s lifesaving measures.

As countries establish comprehensive advertising bans and graphic health warnings on cigarette packages, PMI uses many tactics to challenge such effective tobacco control measures. Approximately 100 countries have established tobacco labeling requirements that are proven and effective in reducing smoking rates. But this year PMI filed a lawsuit against Uruguay just days after its government enacted a law requiring that health warnings cover 80 percent of cigarette packaging. Uruguay is the host country for this year’s meeting of the treaty’s Conference of the Parties – PMI’s aggressive action is a convenient way of bullying the treaty process as countries implement it across the globe.

In Thailand, the government has been a strong advocate for measures limiting tobacco industry interference in its public health policy-making. PMI requested meetings with the Prime Minister and a range of other ministers including the Minister of Public Health.  PMI orchestrated this effort through the US-ASEAN Business Council of which it is part. This is in direct defiance of the treaty’s guidelines limiting government interaction with the tobacco industry. And this tactic is not unique to Thailand, PMI is using its association with the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council as a backdoor means of gaining access to public officials across the region.

PMI still doesn’t get it. The international community has united to prevent the practices of your industry, that cause millions of people to die each year, and millions more to suffer.  When it comes to tobacco control, the only way for PMI to be helpful is to stop obstructing and manipulating health policy. For the last two years at the negotiating meetings regarding the FCTC’s illicit trade protocol, Parties to the treaty have reinforced this message by asking the industry to exit a room they should never have been in, in the first place.

Mr. Camilleri, you have stated that PMI will “never” comply with the treaty and keep out of public health policy. I’d like to ask: if not a treaty by the will of the world’s people, what will it take for PMI to stop bullying, interfering in, and outright obstructing the enactment of health policies that will save millions of lives? What will it take for PMI to stop hiding behind trade associations, and otherwise looking for means to circumvent international law? 

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