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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Ellen Schaffer, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD 20853, 000-000-0000, wcotman@jhsph.edu

International covenants establish a role for governments in ensuring the conditions for human health and wellbeing, which has been recognized as a central human right. International trade agreements, conversely, prioritize the rights of corporations over health and human rights. International trade agreements are threatening existing tobacco control policies and restrict the possibility of implementing new controls. The tobacco industry has used trade policy to undermine effective barriers to tobacco importation. Recent agreements on eliminating various trade restrictions, including those on tobacco, have expanded beyond international movement of goods to include internal tobacco distribution regulations and intellectual property rules regulating advertising and labelling. To the extent trade agreements protect the tobacco industry, in itself a deadly enterprise, they erode human rights principles and contribute to ill health. Trade negotiations provide an unwarranted opportunity for the tobacco industry to assert its interests without public scrutiny. The health community should become involved in reversing these trends, and help promote additional measures to protect public health.

Learning Objectives:

• see abstract

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation