Exclusion of cigarette firms from WHO meet questioned

The manufacturer of Camel, Mild Seven and Winston cigarettes has questioned the non-inclusion of cigarette firms from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) upcoming meeting on tobacco industry regulations.

In a statement released by its local subsidiary, JT International Philippines Inc., on Thursday, Geneva, Switzerland-based Japan Tobacco International (JTI) said shutting out the public—including industry members and media—from the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) was “highly questionable” and showed “lack of transparency,” citing the opinion of international law expert Franklin Berman.

The so-called COP6, which will be held in Moscow, Russia, is scheduled to start on Oct. 13 and end on Oct 18.

The regular FCTC COP meetings are being conducted in order to review signatory-countries’ compliance as well as implementation of the provisions under the WHO FCTC Convention.

“Upon Berman’s review of the history and practice of WHO FCTC’s COP, he confirmed that by excluding the public, WHO/COP breaches its own Rules of Procedure,” JTI said.

Citing Berman’s opinion, JTI added that Article 5.3 of the FCTC, which “aims to protect policy decision-making from undue influence, but is often misrepresented or used as an excuse to shut out the tobacco industry,” could not be cited to justify the exclusion of pro-tobacco lobbyists from the meeting.

JTI noted that the 2012 COP5 meeting in South Korea accommodated about 200 tobacco control lobbyists but only reserved 30 slots for media, tobacco firms and members of the academe. Ben O. de Vera