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US snubs yet another global
treaty
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Eleven days after the Kyoto
Protocol to fight global warming entered into
force, despite staunch opposition from the
administration of US President George W Bush,
another international treaty, this one on tobacco,
took effect on Sunday without US ratification.
The Bush administration signed the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)
last May, but has not yet sent it to the Senate
for ratification. Fifty-seven countries, including
most members of the European Union, Australia,
Japan and other major US allies, have ratified the
treaty, which was adopted by the World Health
Assembly in Geneva in May 2003. Nearly 170
countries have signed it.
"Unfortunately,
the United States has a long history of signing
treaties and never ratifying them," said John L
Kirkwood, president and chief executive officer of
the American Lung Association. "The stakes in
tobacco control are too high for this treaty to
meet the same fate. The United States should join
the nations around the world, including allies
like the United Kingdom, Canada and Mexico, that
have ratified the treaty to save lives."
Although Washington signed the FCTC last
May, the move was met with skepticism from
public-health activists who charged that
Washington consistently took positions during its
negotiations similar to those put forward by the
tobacco industry in order to weaken the treaty.
Mere signing of treaties without
ratification commits countries to support them but
does not create any legal obligations to abide by
its provisions.
Four years in the making,
the treaty, which was negotiated under the
auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO),
provides "nations powerful new tools to protect
the health of their citizens from the tobacco
industry's deceptions and slick marketing", said
Matthew Myers, president of the Washington-based
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
It
requires ratifying nations to ban tobacco
advertising, promotion and sponsorship, although
the treaty provides an exception for nations such
as the United States with constitutional
constraints. It also requires that large warning
labels cover at least 30% of cigarette packs and
prohibits false, misleading and deceptive language
- such as "low tar", "light" or "mild" - that
imply that a tobacco product is less harmful.
In addition, the treaty commits nations to
protect non-smokers from tobacco smoke in indoor
workplaces; urges strict regulation of
tobacco-product contents; and urges governments to
increase taxes on tobacco, enhance global efforts
to prevent tobacco smuggling, and actively promote
tobacco prevention and research programs.
It also creates a fund that can be used by
poor countries to educate their publics about the
hazards posed by tobacco use.
While
smoking rates have generally fallen in North
America and parts of Europe in recent years, they
have increased sharply in developing countries as
corporate tobacco giants, including British
American Tobacco (BAT), Philip Morris/Altria, and
Japan Tobacco International, have concentrated
their promotion efforts in new markets,
particularly in Asia, Central and Eastern Europe,
and Latin America.
Tobacco use is
currently killing approximately 5 million people
worldwide every year, according to WHO, but that
figure is expected to rise to 10 million a year
within two decades, with 70% of those deaths in
developing nations.
"This treaty will save
millions of lives," said Kathryn Mulvey, executive
director of Corporate Accountability
International, formerly known as Infact. "It
demonstrates that working together, the nations of
the world can protect people from irresponsible
and dangerous corporate practices. Attempts by
Philip Morris/Altria, BAT and JTI to prevent an
effective treaty from entering into force have
proved futile."
Throughout the FCTC
negotiating process, according to Mulvey,
Washington consistently took positions designed to
dilute the treaty at the behest of the major
tobacco corporations, of which Philip
Morris/Altria is the world's biggest.
"February 2005 is a landmark month for
international cooperation on critical issues of
protecting people and our natural resources, and
the US is missing the boat," she said. "As both
the global tobacco treaty and the Kyoto Protocol
take effect with the US on the sidelines, we are
calling on our government to join with the global
community in prioritizing people's lives over the
profits of giant corporations."
The 1997
Kyoto Protocol, which requires ratifying nations
to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions an
average of 5% below their 1990 emission levels by
2012, took effect in February, 90 days after
Russian ratification.
Of all the world's
industrialized countries, the only two holdouts
are Australia and the US. Bush has said he opposes
the treaty because it will harm the US economy.
The FCTC has been considerably less
controversial than the Kyoto Protocol and has
indeed been one of the most rapidly embraced
treaties in recent times, in part because,
powerful as they are, the major tobacco companies
don't wield the combined clout of the global oil,
coal, and gas industry, as well as auto
manufacturers and some oil-exporting nations.
Similarly, the relationship between
smoking and disease has been well established,
while the role of fossil-fuel emissions in warming
the Earth's climate - and the implications of that
warming - cannot be established with the same
certainty.
Scores of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) that were heavily involved in
the negotiation of the FCTC also helped speed
ratification by exercising pressure on their
governments.
The 200-member Network for
Accountability of Tobacco Transnational (NATT)
also played a major role in exposing and
challenging attempts by the big tobacco companies
to derail the treaty.
The Consumer
Information Network, a NATT member in Kenya, for
example, helped expose BAT's sponsorship of a
beach holiday for members of parliament, an effort
apparently designed to persuade lawmakers to water
down key provisions of the Tobacco Control Bill.
"This is a historic moment in the movement
challenging irresponsible and dangerous corporate
actions around the world," said Akinbode Oluwafemi
of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria. "It is
no longer business as usual for Big Tobacco. With
millions of lives at stake, we urge countries that
have not yet ratified to do so without delay,
particularly those that took the lead during
treaty negotiations."
"Now that the FCTC
will enter into force, it is crucial that
governments maintain the momentum and implement
efficient and life-saving tobacco control
legislation," said Laurent Huber, director of the
FCA, a Geneva-based international NGO coalition.
"Weak interpretation and poor implementation of
the FCTC's provisions will not promote public
health."
(Inter Press
Service) |
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