[Intl-tobacco] NGO Alliance's Briefing Paper on Global Tobacco Treaty

[Robert Weissman]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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Dear Colleague:

Please find below links to a short briefing paper on the global tobacco tre=
aty,
known as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Tobacco-relate=
d
illness currently claims more than 4 million lives a year and if current
trends continue, will claim over 10 million lives a year by 2020, with the
majority of those deaths occurring in developing countries. The last round
of negotiations on the FCTC is set to commence two short weeks from now in
Geneva and will determine whether the final treaty will advance public
health or whether countries will capitulate to the wishes of a small
minority of countries (including the United States, Germany and Japan) who
wish to see a weak and ineffective treaty.

This paper comes from the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), an
international NGO coalition formed in 1999 at the start of the negotiations
(www.fctc.org). Now representing more than 180 groups from over 70
countries, the Alliance points out in its paper that the recently-issued
draft text does not reflect the views of the overwhelming majority of
countries which have advocated for a strong treaty througout the
negotiations. The Alliance makes specific recommendations for changes in th=
e
text, and concludes by calling on countries which favour a strong conventio=
n
to "refuse to participate in a consensus that is too weak. The effort to
find consensus must be subject to a =91floor=92, below which those that hav=
e
worked to achieve a meaningful treaty will not allow the text to sink."

The briefing paper is available on the web:

In HTML web browsable form:
http://www.fctc.org/INB6comments.shtml

In pdf format:
http://www.fctc.org/INB6comments.pdf


If you wish to sign online petitions urging the United States and Germany
(two of the countries which have been trying to weaken the treaty) to stop
trying to weaken the treaty you may do so at the following websites:

To sign a petition to the United States government, go to:
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/campaign/global/globalhealth/

To sign a petition to the German government, go to:
http://petition.globalink.org/view.php?code=3Dde-eng



We hope you find this useful.

Ross Hammond (on behalf of the Framework Convention Alliance)
tel. 1-415-452-9322
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[ FCA Briefing web version.pdf of type application/pdf deleted ]
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