[Intl-tobacco] Call for Tobacco Products to be Excluded From Trade Agreements

[Robert Weissman]

Friends,

The various rules contained in trade agreements may conflict with a wide
range of tobacco control measures, including labeling requirements,
plain paper packaging, ingredient disclosure laws, bans on misleading
descriptors ("mild," "light," "low"), product content regulations,
distribution restrictions and advertising and marketing regulations.

The Framework Convention will provide some protection in many of the
areas, but is not likely to provide immunity from trade threats for
countries pursuing appropriate tobacco control strategies.

At Essential Action, we hope to focus increased attention on these
issues. We believe there is a simple solution to the problem: tobacco
products should be excluded from trade agreements.

Last week in Miami, at the Ministerial Meeting of the Free Trade Area of
the Americas (FTAA), we held a press conference/rally along with a
coalition of
other groups, urging that tobacco products be excluded from the FTAA.
We'll have a report on that event, along with pictures, available soon.

Following this message are a series of new materials on trade and tobacco:

1. The overview section of a new paper we've just published,
"International Trade Agreements and Tobacco Control: Threats to Public
Health and the Case for Excluding Tobacco from Trade Agreements."

A pdf version of the full paper is available at:
http://www.essentialaction.org/tobacco/trade/tobacco.trade.v02.backgrd.pdf

Please send any comments on the paper to me (rob@essential.org) -- we
intend to revise and expand this version.

2. A statement from tobacco control groups in 11 countries in the
Americas calling for tobacco products to be excluded from the FTAA. (We
intend to circulate several more sign-on statements in the near future,
doing much broader outreach than for this statement.)

3. A statement from Judy Wilkenfeld of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free
Kids, issued at the Miami rally.

4. Information on how you can send a fax to US Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick on these issues, through a free fax system set up by corpwatch.org

Also note that Rep. Waxman, Sen. Durbin, and Rep. Doggett sent an
excellent letter on November 18 urging the Bush  Administration to
insist that tobacco products be excluded from the Free Trade Area of the
Americas. It is available at:

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108/pdf_inves/pdf_tobacco_ftaa_nov_18_let.pdf

--
Robert Weissman