ArticleTobacco control2014
Tobacco industry argues domestic trademark laws and international treaties preclude cigarette health warning labels, despite consistent legal advice that the argument is invalid.
Article in Tobacco control, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Hollow Threats: Transnational Food and Beverage Companies' Use of International Agreements to Fight Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labeling in Mexico and Beyond.International journal of health policy and management · 2022Article
- Global Implementation of Tobacco Demand Reduction Measures Specified in Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2022Article
- International investment liberalization, transnational corporations and NCD prevention policy non-decisions: a realist review on the political economy of tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food.Globalization and health · 2021Review
- Evidence on article 5.3 of FCTC (tobacco industry interference in tobacco control activities) in India- a qualitative scoping study.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Corporate political activity in the context of unhealthy food advertising restrictions across Transport for London: A qualitative case study.PLoS medicine · 2021Article
- Corporate power and the international trade regime preventing progressive policy action on non-communicable diseases: a realist review.Health policy and planning · 2021Review
- Exceeding WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Obligations: Nepal Overcoming Tobacco Industry Interference to Enact a Comprehensive Tobacco Control Policy.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2020Article
- Implementation of Cigarette Plain Packaging: Triadic Reactions of Consumers, State Officials, and Tobacco Companies-The Case of Saudi Arabia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Normalizing Tobacco? The Politics of Trade, Investment, and Tobacco Control.The Milbank quarterly · 2019Article
- Impact of the WHO FCTC over the first decade: a global evidence review prepared for the Impact Assessment Expert Group.Tobacco control · 2019Review
- Emerging threats of global preemption to nutrition labelling.Health policy and planning · 2019Article
- Containing diffusion: the tobacco industry's multipronged trade strategy to block tobacco standardised packaging.Tobacco control · 2019Article
- Advancing progressive health policy to reduce NCDs amidst international commercial opposition: Tobacco standardised packaging in Australia.Global public health · 2018Article
- Tobacco control law implementation in a middle-income country: Transnational tobacco control network overcoming tobacco industry opposition in Colombia.Global public health · 2018Article
- Regulatory chills: tobacco industry legal threats and the politics of tobacco standardised packaging in New Zealand.The New Zealand medical journal · 2018Article
- Defending strong tobacco packaging and labelling regulations in Uruguay: transnational tobacco control network versus Philip Morris International.Tobacco control · 2018Article
- Plain packaging of tobacco products: the logical next step for tobacco control policy in India.BMJ global health · 2018Review
- Reassessing policy paradigms: A comparison of the global tobacco and alcohol industries.Global public health · 2018Article
- Disentangling regional trade agreements, trade flows and tobacco affordability in sub-Saharan Africa.Globalization and health · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo analyse the tobacco industry's use of international trade agreements to oppose policies to strengthen health warning labels (HWLs).
designA review of tobacco industry documents, tobacco control legislation and international treaties.
resultsDuring the early 1990s, the tobacco industry became increasingly alarmed about the advancement of HWLs on cigarettes packages. In response, it requested legal opinions from British American Tobacco's law firms in Australia and England, Britain's Department of Trade and Industry and the World Intellectual Property Organisation on the legality of restricting and prohibiting the use of their trademarks, as embodied in cigarette packages. The consistent legal advice, privately submitted to the companies, was that international treaties do not shield trademark owners from government limitations (including prohibition) on the use of their trademarks. Despite receiving this legal advice, the companies publicly argued that requiring large HWLs compromised their trademark rights under international treaties. The companies successfully used these arguments as part of their successful effort to deter Canadian and Australian governments from enacting laws requiring the plan packaging of cigarettes, which helped delay large graphic HWLs, including 'plain' packaging, for over a decade.
conclusionsGovernments should not be intimidated by tobacco company threats and unsubstantiated claims, and carefully craft HWL laws to withstand the inevitable tobacco industry lawsuits with the knowledge that the companies' own lawyers as well as authoritative bodies have told the companies that the rights they claim do not exist.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.