[Intl-tobacco] Clips on US undermining FCTC

[Robert Weissman]

(Note dates, these are a week old)

US torpedoes global anti-smoking treaty with opt-out demand - The
Independent

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Friday, 2 May 2003
The United States was accused yesterday of seeking to undermine yet
another international treaty after it sought special exemptions from
a World Health Organisation initiative to curtail tobacco use.
The Bush administration claimed it intended to sign the treaty, which
was negotiated by 171 countries, but said in a letter to the WHO that
it wanted a clause allowing governments to opt out of any provision
they found objectionable.
That prompted anti-tobacco lobbyists and some Democrats to accuse the
Bush administration of attempting to torpedo the treaty as a favour
to Philip Morris and the other US tobacco firms who contribute
lavishly to Republican party campaign funds.
It has also angered international negotiators who see the move as
another instance of the administration's go-it-alone, "America First"
approach to international affairs. "I think it is impossible to reach
a consensus, and this could easily be the end of the entire tobacco
convention," a Belgian negotiator on the WHO treaty, Luk Joossens,
told The Washington Post. Allowing piecemeal exemptions =96 or
"reservations" as they are technically known =96 would undermine the
effectiveness of the document, he said. "If you open one article, it
will encourage other nations to open articles they don't like ...
there is a lot of anger in many countries about this American action."
Anger at the US has been fuelled by the fact that a draft of the
treaty was approved at a WHO meeting in March. Since then, only the
United States and the Dominican Republic have raised objections.
The sticking point in Washington appears to be the draft treaty's
restrictions on cigarette advertising. These would have a significant
impact on US tobacco firms which have been all but eviscerated in
their home market and rely on expanding foreign markets. The treaty
also calls for all countries to include large health warnings on
cigarette packaging.
Several critics have accused the Bush administration of double
standards on cigarettes, publicly identifying them as a major health
risk at home while quietly working to ease restriction on US tobacco
companies overseas.
The Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives
wrote to President George Bush last week accusing him of seeking to
weaken the WHO treaty and to place "inappropriate" pressure on other
countries to support the US position.
This would not the first time the Bush administration pulled out of
an international agreement. Since coming to power two years ago, it
has abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Kyoto protocol
on global warming and plans for an international criminal court..
On tobacco, the Bush administration has already lobbied to ease
tariffs and increase government export assistance to tobacco
companies.
Congressman Henry Waxman of California noted in a recent letter to
President Bush that Philip Morris was the number one corporate
contributor to the Republican party as well as the country's leading
tobacco exporter. "At a minimum, this creates a terrible appearance
of special favours," he said. "Lower tobacco tariffs and increased
imports of tobacco products are associated with ... disease, and
death in developing countries. This grim legacy is not worthy of the
United States."
Treaties spurned
Kyoto climate-change protocol
In March 2001, the Bush administration withdrew from the 1997 Kyoto
treaty that committed industrialised countries to cut emissions of
gases believed responsible for warming the planet. All major
industrialised nations have signed except the US  the world's biggest
polluter.
International Criminal Court
The first permanent international tribunal to try cases of war
crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide opened in The Hague in
March  89 countries signed up to it in 1998, but it was spurned by
the US. It has signed agreements with 24 countries guaranteeing
immunity from prosecution for its citizens in those countries.
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Sets out nuclear disarmament as a global goal. The "big five"  US,
Russia, China, Britain and France  backed the treaty's creation at
the United Nations in 1996. Bill Clinton was the first to sign it,
and 159 countries followed suit. But since Clinton left office, the
US has refused to ratify it.
Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty
In December 2001, Mr Bush served formal notice to the Russians that
the US was pulling out of the bilateral treaty, signed by presidents
Nixon and Brezhnev at the height of the Cold War. Scrapping the ABM
Treaty cleared the way for the US to begin developing its own missile
defence system.


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U.S. Wants to Reopen Talks on Global Anti-Tobacco Pact

May 1, 2003
By ALISON LANGLEY

ZURICH, April 30 - The United States asked officials from
191 countries this week to reopen negotiations on a treaty
meant to control the sale and use of tobacco and scheduled
to be adopted a month from now at the World Health Assembly
in Geneva.

American negotiators said they could not accept the treaty
as long as it included a "no-reservations" clause, which
would prevent countries from disregarding any provisions
they found unacceptable.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control would place a
comprehensive ban on advertising and promoting tobacco
products, except where the prohibition conflicts with
national constitutions. It would also impose high taxes on
tobacco products and expose companies to liability for
their products. It would further require tobacco companies
to divulge all the ingredients in their products and print
warning labels that cover at least 30 percent of the
package.

The treaty would also ban companies from using misleading
terms, like ultralight or light, to describe their products
and would encourage nations to fight cigarette smuggling
and enact strict laws on indoor air.

The treaty measures are aimed particularly at combating the
rising incidence of smoking in developing countries,
diplomats in Geneva said.

In a letter delivered Monday to the director general of the
World Health Organization, Gro Harlem Brundtland, United
States negotiators said that they supported a strong treaty
but that they could not adopt it as written because certain
provisions would override state laws.

An assistant to the Brazilian ambassador, who presided over
the four-year negotiations that led to the pact, said his
embassy opposed reopening negotiations and did not want to
allow nations to pick and choose which parts of the
convention they would ratify. Matthew Myers, president of
the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, agreed, saying that a
provision allowing countries to withdraw from parts of the
convention would be "a poison pill that would kill the
whole treaty."

The position paper, hand-delivered by the United States
ambassador, Kevin Moley, to Mrs. Brundtland during a
private meeting Monday and sent to World Health Assembly
member states, reiterated that Washington was dedicated to
working with partners to prevent future death and disease
through effective and sustainable global tobacco prevention
activities.

In the paper, Washington said it intended to sign the
convention and press for its ratification, but that its
ability to do so was undermined by the current prohibition
on allowing nations to make reservations. Specifically, a
United States official said there were three provisions
that Washington could not commit to: setting minimum sizes
on warning labels; prohibiting the free distribution of
cigarettes; and defining what constitutes an advertisement,
which could violate the First Amendment.

Democrats in Washington, though, accused the Bush
administration of protecting tobacco companies and called
its legal points specious. In a detailed, eight-page letter
to President Bush, Representative Henry A. Waxman of
California said that the "position of the United States has
been in virtual lock step with the tobacco industry
throughout the negotiations."

Other Democratic leaders urged Mr. Bush to adopt the treaty
as it stands. "We urge that you not seek to reopen the
negotiations because the only outcomes would be to isolate
the U.S. from our allies and weaken the treaty so much so
that it will not effectively deal with the harm posed by
tobacco use," wrote Representative Nancy Pelosi of
California and Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the
Democratic leader, in a separate letter to the White House.


Developing nations, projected to be the biggest growth area
for tobacco-related illnesses over the next 20 year, fought
for the strongest laws possible. Some 4.9 million people
die each year from tobacco use, according to World Health
Organization statistics. That toll is expected to double in
20 years, with nearly all the additional deaths coming from
the developing world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/01/international/01TOBA.html?ex=3D1052791118=
&ei
=3D1&en=3D7533c36d7ed98b78


------------


U.S. Seeks to Alter Anti-Tobacco Treaty
  'Reservations' Clause Sought as Way Out of Some Provisions

 By Marc Kaufman
 Washington Post Staff Writer
 Wednesday, April 30, 2003; Page A01

The United States told the World Health Organization this week that it is
unlikely to sign the first treaty to curtail tobacco use worldwide unless
the 171 nations that hammered out its language agree to a clause that
would allow governments to opt out of any provision they find
objectionable.

The Bush administration says it needs the "reservations" clause to ensure
that the United States  could disregard treaty requirements  it considered
constitutionally questionable. But anti-tobacco activists and foreign
diplomats say the demand is an attempt to water down the treaty to benefit
tobacco companies or to unravel the agreement entirely.

The draft of the treaty, which calls for nations to adopt a wide range of
tobacco-control initiatives, was overwhelmingly approved at a Geneva
conference in March. Since then,  only the United States and the
Dominican Republic have objected, WHO officials said.

 "It is the intent of the United States to sign the [treaty] and to press
for its ratification by our Senate," said the letter, delivered Monday to
WHO Director General Gro Harlem Bruntland and to health and foreign
ministers worldwide. "However, as noted in our statement at the final
negotiating session, our ability to sign and ratify the [treaty] is
undermined by the current prohibition on reservations."

While the treaty would change the way many nations regulate tobacco, it
would do little to change American tobacco control practices or policies.
Provisions such as global restrictions on advertising, however, would have
a potentially great impact on American tobacco companies that increasingly
make their profits from cigarette sales abroad.

In Monday's letter, the United States asked for support in changing the
language before the treaty is officially adopted at a World Health
Assembly meeting May 19. WHO officials and delegates to the negotiations
said they do not expect the language to be renegotiated at that meeting,
and doubt that a consensus to include a "reservations" clause can be
reached informally beforehand. During more than three years of
negotiations, U.S. officials have tried  to have the clause added.

"I think it is impossible to reach a consensus, and this could easily be
the end of the entire tobacco convention," said Belgian negotiator Luk
Joossens. "If you open one article, it will encourage other nations to
open articles they don't like. And if the reservations are included, then
crucial aspects of the entire effort will be weakened. There is a lot of
anger in so many countries about this American action."

The goal of the treaty, which would be the first  successfully negotiated
under the auspices of WHO, is to significantly reduce cigarette smoking
worldwide. It includes a ban on tobacco advertising  except where a ban
would violate national laws, it encourages nations to raise tobacco taxes
to discourage smoking, and it calls for  specific steps to control tobacco
use, such as requiring that health warnings on cigarette packages take up
30 to 50 percent of the display area.

The treaty also includes tobacco-control programs that require
considerable funding. The United States has been the largest donor to that
effort, and some delegates said they believed the United States was using
the threat of cutting off its funding to persuade delegates to vote for
its positions.

 In recent years, the United States has balked at or pulled out of a series
of major international agreements -- including the Kyoto Protocol on
global warming, the International Criminal Court and Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty.

William Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services,
said the primary concern of U.S. negotiators is that  parts of the treaty
could prove to be unconstitutional by interfering, for instance, with
tobacco companies' free speech rights. In addition, he said, the treaty
calls on Congress to approve policy changes it might not accept -- such as
changing the size of warning labels.

"A lot of our problem has to do with the broadness of the treaty," Pierce
said. "Broadness and vagueness are something our court system oftentimes
takes a dim view of. Since we are signing on to a treaty with other
nations, they could bring this up and use this vagueness in a way that, in
this country, would not be constitutional."

Pierce said no formal decision has been made on what the United States
will do if the "reservation" clause is not adopted. If the United States
does not sign the agreement, its representatives cannot take part in
meetings that will follow to refine and implement the treaty. He said this
would be a problem in at least one issue that the United States is keenly
interested in -- cigarette smuggling and the connection between illicit
cigarette sales and terrorist groups.

Tobacco-control activists say that the United States has already won a
number of concessions over constitutional concerns and that U.S.
officials appear to be acting now for other reasons. "This looks like an
American effort to blow up the treaty, or to neutralize it for the benefit
of Philip Morris and other cigarette makers," said Matthew Myers,
president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Myers said many smaller nations have voiced concern that tobacco companies
will pressure them to opt out of specific provisions -- such as the
advertising ban -- if the reservations clause is added. "Basically,
allowing reservations would let the tobacco companies go back to these
smaller nations and renegotiate the treaty," he said.

Even before the Bush administration's letter was released, Democrats had
sought to make a political issue of the tobacco negotiations. In a letter
to President Bush sent  Friday, Senate Democratic leader Thomas A.
Daschle (S.D.) and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) applauded
him for his public statements that tobacco use is the greatest health
issue facing the nation, but said the delegation in Geneva negotiated in a
different spirit.

"In contrast to these public statements, your Administration went to great
lengths to weaken many important provisions of the treaty," they wrote.
"In addition to advancing weak language, the U.S. delegation also
inappropriately pressured other nations to adopt U.S. positions."

WHO officials sought to put the best face on the dispute. "We appear to
have 95 [percent] to 98 percent of nations happy with the text, and two
that want to have changes," said Derek Yach, who has led the WHO effort.
"I think we have to be quite pleased with that."

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