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US, Malaysia skirmish over tobacco in TPPA talks Dear friends and colleagues, We are pleased to share a number of articles that appeared in late August-early September centring on the matter of tobacco control and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). The first is an Inside U.S. Trade news report entitled ‘Malaysia Poised To Table Complete Carveout From TPP For Tobacco Measures’, which flagged off plans by the Malaysian government to table a proposal that would completely carve out tobacco control measures from obligations contained in the TPPA. As the Inside U.S. Trade report points out, the proposal would effectively shield TPP governments from any state-to-state or investor-state challenge against their tobacco control measures, going far beyond the US tobacco proposal. [Item 1] The second article is a 22 August, 2013, editorial by Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City that appeared in the New York Times. Blomberg – a prominent advocate for tobacco control – voiced disappointment that the US administration had “bowed to pressure from the tobacco industry” by dropping highly-anticipated draft “safe harbour” proposals that would have protected TPPA countries’ tobacco control regulations from being challenged by the tobacco industry at international arbitration tribunals. Bloomberg also said the proposals tabled by the US during the 19th round of TPPA talks in Brunei were “weak half-measures at best” that could directly contribute to "tens of millions" of deaths globally. [Item 2] As a brief background and to shed light on the political economic context of the tobacco issue in the US’ international trade relations, we have included an article by Thomas Bollyky, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development, to explain the tobacco issue in the context of the US’ international trade relations. The 5 September article shows how the question of whether tobacco should be treated bedeviled US policymakers for decades, but it has now arisen again, with much controversy, in the context of the TPPA. [Item 3] Many quarters have lauded the Malaysian side for taking the higher ground on the matter, with some even positing the divide as having the potential in itself of delaying the talks to the end of the year. [Items 4 and 5] An Inter-Press Service article rounds up the issues in the most recent of its reports on the matter in pointing to the sharp division forming over the extent to which countries should be allowed to regulate the sale of foreign tobacco products. [Item 6] With best wishes, Third
World Network [Item 1] Inside U.S. Trade: Daily News Malaysia Poised To Table Complete Carveout From TPP For Tobacco Measures Posted: August 25, 2013 BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei – The Malaysian government is poised to table a proposal here that would completely carve out tobacco control measures from having to comply with any obligations in a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, according to informed sources. The proposal, which would effectively shield TPP governments from any state-to-state or investor-state challenge against their tobacco control measures, is the latest twist in the debate over tobacco regulation in TPP. The Malaysian carveout would go far beyond a U.S. tobacco proposal expected to be tabled here that has come under fire domestically from business groups who oppose it and public health organizations who think it does not go far enough. Both sides are planning to press TPP countries here to back their respective demands. Malaysia’s language also goes farther than the “safe harbor” from dispute settlement for tobacco regulations that the U.S. had considered last year but ultimately scaled back to the proposal it will table this week. The “safe harbor” would have only applied to tobacco control regulations -- not legislation -- and would not have protected governments from investor-state challenges, only state-to-state dispute settlement cases. It is not completely clear whether the Malaysian proposal would have a market access component that would require TPP countries to refrain from lowering their tariffs on tobacco products. Under the U.S. proposal, the U.S. would still press other TPP countries to phase out tariffs on tobacco products. Sources said the U.S. and Malaysia are expected to table their competing tobacco proposals simultaneously some time during the round here, and one informed source said that could happen as early as tomorrow (Aug. 26). The proposals are expected to be tabled in the chief negotiators’ group, where they will be discussed in general terms during this round. One source speculated that real negotiations may not begin until an intersessional meeting on legal issues that is slated to be held in Washington during the second week of September. The forthcoming Malaysian proposal has already garnered the support of a key U.S. anti-tobacco group, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. “We applaud the Malaysian tobacco control community for their strong advocacy to convince the Malaysian government to table a tobacco carve out, and we will encourage the U.S. and other TPP countries to adopt the Malaysian proposal,” Susan M. Liss, the group’s executive director, said in e-mail to Inside U.S. Trade. “In addition, because the weaker U.S. proposal will also be under consideration, we cannot let up on our efforts to strengthen it, and we will continue to urge other countries to improve the U.S. approach,” she added. Malaysia had already decided to move forward with its tobacco proposal when the U.S. announced last week that it intended to unveil its tobacco-specific language at the Brunei round, according to an informed source. Malaysian public health groups were worried that if the U.S. tabled its proposal first, it would become the basis for negotiations and Malaysia would get squeezed out of the discussion, this source said. The groups urged the Malaysian government to table its proposal first, but ultimately the chief negotiators from both countries worked out an arrangement where they would table to the two proposals at the same time, sources said. The Malaysian proposal originated in the Ministry of Health, which also drafted its legal language, according to one informed source. The Malaysian Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) deferred to the health ministry on the tobacco carveout, the source said. Malaysia’s proposal responds to calls from the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC), a civil society group, to completely carve out tobacco control measures from TPP obligations. MCTC President Molly Cheah made that demand in a stakeholder presentation at the 18th round of TPP talks held last month in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. “The carveout means that the tobacco industry will not be able to use any provisions in the TPP to sue governments or to threaten governments, and that’s what they have been doing,” Cheah said in an interview here. She pointed to the investor-state challenge and World Trade Organization dispute against Australia’s plain packaging law, among other cases. “We want to ensure that the proposal is broad enough not to allow loopholes … for the tobacco industry to take advantage of,” she added. One of goals of the MCTC in pressing its government for the carveout was to ensure that nothing in the TPP would prevent countries from implementing the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). All TPP countries have ratified the FCTC except for the United States, which has signed the deal but not ratified it. The FCTC requires parties to adopt and maintain price and tax measures to reduce the demand for tobacco, as well as non-price measures such as regulation of the contents of tobacco products as well as packaging and labeling requirements. Anti-tobacco groups do not expect Australia to lead the charge on including tobacco-related language in TPP due to the fact that its plain packaging law is currently being challenged both in the World Trade Organization and in an investor-state case brought by tobacco giant Phillip Morris. Australia fears that advocating for new language in TPP to protect anti-tobacco regulations would give the impression that current trade rules are insufficient to protect a country’s right to regulate tobacco, which could undermine its legal argument that the plain packaging law is consistent with WTO rules, sources said. During the course of the TPP negotiations, anti-tobacco groups have met with all participants except Japan to discuss the possibility of including specific language protecting tobacco regulation, and none of these countries has been “hostile” to that idea, one source said. This source acknowledged that Japan may be skeptical of any tobacco proposal in TPP given that it has a large and influential tobacco industry, led by Japan Tobacco Company, which is partly owned by the Japanese government and is a major exporter to other Asian countries. Vietnam also has a state-owned tobacco company, another source pointed out. [Item 2] Op-Ed Contributor Why Is Obama Caving on Tobacco? By MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG Published: August 22, 2013 The New York Times LAST year I endorsed President Obama for re-election largely because of his commitment to putting science and public health before politics. But now the Obama administration appears to be on the verge of bowing to pressure from a powerful special-interest group, the tobacco industry, in a move that would be a colossal public health mistake and potentially contribute to the deaths of tens of millions of people around the world. Although the president’s signature domestic issue has been health-care reform, his legacy on public health will be severely tarnished — at a terrible cost to the poor in the developing world — unless his administration reverses course on this issue. Today in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, representatives from the United States and 11 other nations begin the latest round of negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multinational trade agreement. The pact is intended to lower tariffs and other barriers to commerce, a vitally important economic goal. But if it is achieved at the expense of people’s health, the United States and countries around the world will be worse off for it. The early drafts of the agreement included a “safe harbor” provision protecting nations that have adopted regulations on tobacco — like package warnings and advertising and marketing restrictions — because of “the unique status of tobacco products from a health and regulatory perspective.” This provision would have prevented the tobacco industry from interfering with governments’ sovereign right to protect public health through tobacco control laws. Countries (and cities) that have adopted such regulations have had great success reducing smoking rates and saving lives. In New York City, where we have adopted some of the most comprehensive tobacco policies in the world, the smoking rate among adults has fallen by nearly one-third, and among high school students it has been cut in half. This progress helped to increase average life expectancy: in 2010, it was 80.9 years in the city, more than two years longer than in the country as a whole. This week, however, the Obama administration bowed to pressure from the tobacco industry and dumped the safe harbor provision from the trade compact. The tobacco industry was joined by other business interest groups that were fearful that the safe harbor provision would lead to other products being singled out in future trade accords. So instead of the safe harbor, the Obama administration is now calling for a clause requiring that before a government can challenge another’s tobacco regulation under the treaty, their health authorities must “discuss the measure.” The administration will also try to ensure that a general exception for matters to protect human life or health (typical in trade agreements) applies specifically to tobacco regulation. But these are weak half-measures at best that will not protect American law — and the laws of other countries — from being usurped by the tobacco industry, which is increasingly using trade and investment agreements to challenge domestic tobacco control measures. If the Obama administration’s policy reversal is allowed to stand, not only will cigarettes be cheaper for the 800 million people in the countries affected by the trade pact, but multinational tobacco corporations will be able to challenge those governments — including America’s — for implementing lifesaving public health policies. This would not only put our tobacco-control regulations in peril, but also create a chilling effect that would prevent further action, which is desperately needed. Tobacco use causes more deaths around the world than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. If nothing is done, one billion people will die of tobacco use by the end of this century. Through my philanthropy, I have supported grass-roots efforts overseas to discourage tobacco use. Bangladesh, for instance, has enacted new rules that are a big step toward banning smoking in public places and on all modes of transportation. In Vietnam, we helped build public support for comprehensive new legislation that includes some of the most effective tobacco-control techniques, like advertising bans and graphic warning labels on packages. But if the trade pact proceeds without the safe harbor provision, this progress will be jeopardized, a devastating setback for the global effort to reduce tobacco use, particularly because the signatories to the trade pact include nations — like the United States, Australia and Vietnam — that have some of the world’s strongest tobacco control measures. If the Obama administration caves, the tobacco rules of its own Food and Drug Administration will be subject to challenge. I could not be more strongly in favor of trade agreements that expand economic opportunity here and around the globe. But a deal that sells out our national commitment to public health, and forfeits our sovereign authority over our tobacco laws, does not merit the support of Mr. Obama; of the Senate, which would have to ratify it; or of the American people. Michael R. Bloomberg is the mayor of New York City. A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 23, 2013, on page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: Why Is Obama Caving on Tobacco? [Item 3] The Tobacco Problem in U.S. Trade Thomas Bollyky, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development September 5, 2013 Should tobacco be like any other product in U.S. trade? The question bedeviled U.S. policymakers for decades, but it has now arisen again, with much controversy, in the context of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the pending trade deal between the United States and eleven other countries. A tobacco field in the Pleasant View community of Horry County, South CarolinaA tobacco field in the Pleasant View community of Horry County, South Carolina. (Photo: Randall Hill/Reuters) The White House has tried to finesse the issue, recently proposing that the TPP agreement acknowledge tobacco as a health concern but otherwise treat it no differently from other products. That compromise has satisfied no one. Health advocates are furious that the White House dropped its previous proposal for a stronger tobacco control exception in the TPP agreement. The business community opposes any special treatment for tobacco. With that controversy spilling into the press and threatening the conclusion of the TPP talks—the Obama administration's signature international economic initiative—the White House should now formally resolve the question of the role of tobacco in U.S. trade policy. That answer is expected to come next week, when the final formal round of TPP negotiations commences in Washington, D.C. For many years, there was no doubt that tobacco was a product like any other in U.S. trade policy. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the United States used trade measures to pry open emerging Asian economies to imported cigarettes. Those countries were unprepared for intensive marketing by the tobacco industry, particularly to women and youth. According toa U.S. Government Accountability Office report, after multinational tobacco companies entered South Korea in 1989, smoking among teens rose 11 percent and quintupled among girls in the first year. A public outcry ensued. In 1997, Congress conditioned the appropriations of several U.S. government agencies on those funds not being used to promote tobacco internationally. An uneasy compromise over tobacco and trade emerged. U.S. trade officials refrained from tobacco-specific initiatives and, despite occasional, significant congressional pressure, declined to bring trade cases against other countries' tobacco control measures. Meanwhile, nearly every U.S. trade and investment agreement negotiated over the past decade has reduced tobacco tariffs and continued to protect tobacco investments like those of any other U.S. industry. As the tobacco industry's tactics on trade shifted, the controversy reignited. Tobacco companies began using trade and investment agreements to file legal challenges to block new cigarette labeling and advertising restrictions. Australia is fighting four different trade and investment cases against its cigarette packaging law. Similar cases have been filed against Norway and Uruguay and threatened against Togo. Investment disputes are expensive and the outcomes can be unpredictable. Many developing countries do not have the expertise or resources to fight. Even New Zealand and Canada backed away from planned tobacco regulations in the face of litigation threats. Since U.S. federal, state, and local laws include many of the same regulations that the tobacco industry has challenged elsewhere, public health advocates are wary about negotiating a new trade agreement if it increases the likelihood of such cases. Other TPP countries share those concerns. Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have already been targets of tobacco trade and investment suits. Vietnam is just beginning to implement effective tobacco control programs. Two weeks ago, the White House revised its previously announced proposal for a tobacco control-specific exception under the TPP agreement. The revised proposal cites tobacco within the standard public health and safety exception that appears in U.S. trade agreements, but it no longer includes other tobacco-specific protections. The U.S. proposal still includes the language used in other recent U.S. trade deals that enables companies to legally challenge public health, safety, or environmental regulations, but it also includes standards that reduce the likelihood of those challenges prevailing. The compromise satisfied no one. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg slammed the White House in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Why Is Obama Caving to Tobacco?" Public health groups claim that the White House's revised proposal does little, if anything, to protect tobacco control. Malaysia, another country in the TPP talks, countered the U.S. proposal with demands that tobacco be excluded entirely from the negotiations. Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups oppose the administration's revised proposal, fearing it could still serve as a precedent for product-specific health exceptions in future U.S. trade agreements on other agricultural and consumer goods like sugar, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals. The controversy over tobacco has backed U.S. trade officials into a corner. These officials do not include tobacco in U.S. trade and investment agreements because they like the industry or its tactics. Rather, U.S. trade initiatives are obliged by law to maintain and enlarge foreign markets for U.S. agricultural and manufacturing products. Tobacco is a legal product and, while the industry has shifted most of its production abroad, the United States remains a significant, albeit declining, exporter. The White House need not undermine U.S. trade law to decide the question of tobacco in the TPP and successfully conclude those negotiations. Tobacco is already unique, as a matter of public health, international law, and established U.S. trade policy. That question has been answered over the course of the past decade. The White House need only recognize it as such. As a matter of public health, tobacco has always been different from alcohol, processed food, or sugary drinks. As former World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland famously said, it is the only consumer product that, when used as directed, kills you. But as the tobacco industry has aggressively expanded into developing country markets, the scale of the public health problem changed. There are now 1.2 billion smokers globally, about one-third of the world's adult population. Nearly 40 percent of the world's children—seven hundred million—breathe secondhand tobacco smoke at home. TheWHO estimates that tobacco use already kills more people annually than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined and will kill one billion people this century, mostly in poor countries. By almost any measure, human or economic, tobacco has become the greatest health threat facing the world today. Tobacco is also now the only legal consumer product that has a binding international treaty dedicated to its control. One hundred and seventy-six countries have ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which mandates tobacco control and prevention programs and provides an international platform for their monitoring. This convention entered into force in 2005 and, like nearly all treaties concluded since that time, the U.S. Congress has yet to ratify it. The United States has signed the convention, however, and is fully compliant with its terms and participates in its meetings. All eleven other countries in the TPP talks have ratified and are legally bound to adopt tobacco control measures prescribed by the convention. In 2001, tobacco also became the only legal consumer product with a binding U.S. executive order (PDF), signed by President Bill Clinton and still in force, requiring all U.S. executive branch agencies not to promote its sale or export. That order also does not permit the use of U.S. trade initiatives to restrict governments' tobacco marketing and advertising regulations, unless those regulations discriminate against U.S. tobacco products in favor of that country's domestic tobacco products. In sum, the White House would be on strong footing in treating tobacco differently from other products in the TPP talks. This combination of an enormous public health threat, a widely subscribed treaty binding all other TPP member countries, and an executive order mandating the U.S. trade policy on the matter is highly unlikely to reoccur for any other consumer or agricultural good. The U.S. Trade Representative should reassure the business community by formally indicating that its proposal supporting tobacco control in the TPP talks is mandated by this unique constellation of factors and cannot serve as precedent under other circumstances. To promote tobacco control, President Obama need not be the nanny in the negotiations. TPP members should not be compelled to adopt tobacco controls, but they should be able to do so without the looming threat of duplicative disputes in multiple trade and investment venues. Instead, the administration should exempt tobacco control measures from legal challenge under the TPP in three ways: This exception must explicitly encompass the full range of tobacco control measures addressed under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and permitted under U.S. laws. This exception should be limited to nondiscriminatory tobacco control measures. An exemption from legal challenge cannot serve as a pretext for TPP countries to favor domestic cigarette producers. This condition is consistent with overall U.S. trade policy and the terms of the 2001 U.S. executive order on tobacco and trade. This exception must not include the cross-reference that exists in most U.S. trade agreements to the health exceptions in World Trade Organization agreements. Such references might inappropriately interfere with tobacco litigation already filed under those other agreements against Australia and other TPP countries. The Obama administration has a tremendous opportunity to forge a new approach on tobacco that balances U.S. mandates on trade with its obligations to promote public health at home and abroad. By seizing that opportunity, the White House can also remove a major emerging obstacle to successfully concluding the TPP, the largest U.S. trade deal in a generation. That would be an outcome that the larger U.S. business community would embrace. [Item 4] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/the-hazard-of-free-trade-tobacco.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss August 31, 2013 The Hazard of Free-Trade Tobacco By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Give thanks to Malaysia for heading off, at least temporarily, an American effort to weaken the ability of countries to impose stiff rules on the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products within their own borders. The Malaysian proposal to preserve that ability led to a stalemate at a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade meeting in Brunei last week and forced the deferral of the issue to future meetings. The United States and 11 countries bordering the Pacific Ocean had been engaged in the latest round of negotiations over a treaty intended to lower tariffs and other barriers to commerce. One of the issues was whether tobacco should be included in such a treaty or “carved out” so that health considerations could take precedence over expanded trade. The issue pits health advocates against the tobacco industry and other commercial interests. On public health grounds, tobacco ought to be excluded from whatever rules are designed to increase trade in agricultural products. Reducing trade barriers to tobacco, a uniquely dangerous product, would serve to increase tobacco consumption and lead to many additional deaths on top of an already high total. Tobacco killed an estimated 100 million people in the 20th century and is projected to kill 1 billion people in this century unless strong action is taken to mitigate the damage. A carve-out from trade rules is only one tactic, but it could save millions of lives, especially in developing countries vulnerable to the industry’s pressure. The United States, which in advance of the meeting had favored a relatively strong proposal to protect a nation’s tobacco control measures from being challenged as violations of trade agreements, offered a weaker proposal in Brunei. The American proposal simply refers to other international agreements that allow exceptions for public health and requires health officials from the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership countries to consult each other before making trade challenges. It would not prevent the challenges from moving forward. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a strong advocate of tobacco control in this country and abroad, rightly denounced the American proposal as “weak half-measures at best.” The proposal leaves the door open for multinational tobacco companies to challenge legitimate tobacco control measures, as they already have in several countries in recent years. Malaysia countered by proposing a complete carve-out of tobacco control measures that would protect a country’s ability to set its own rules for marketing, advertising, banning or taxing various tobacco products, among other control measures. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and several other medical and patient advocacy groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, applauded the Malaysian proposal. It would protect countries from the burdens and costs of fending off trade challenges and from potentially stiff financial penalties if they lose. And it would remove the danger that some countries might not enact strong tobacco control measures in order to avoid any possibility of challenges. American trade officials need to toughen their stance when Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations resume. They should be siding with the public and those concerned about public health, not the makers of products known to be lethal and highly addictive. [Item 5] Public Health, Medical Groups Urge U.S. to Support Malaysia's Historic TPP/Tobacco Carve-Out Proposal SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 27, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- U.S. public health and medical groups applauded Malaysia's historic proposal to "carve out" tobacco from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact now being negotiated by the U.S. and 11 other nations. "We have long urged the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Health and Human Services to take this common sense approach to safeguarding our laws and regulations that protect kids from getting addicted to deadly tobacco products, and help smokers quit," said Ellen Shaffer, Co-Director of the Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH). "We now call on the USTR and HHS to follow Malaysia's historic lead." The deadly and predatory tobacco industry has recently accelerated using trade rules to delay and reverse tobacco control measures that limit cigarette marketing in the U.S., Australia, Uruguay, Norway, and Ireland. Trade rules grant corporations the right to contest a wide range of local, state and federal policies. Countries that lose trade challenges face stiff financial penalties, payable to the complaining corporation. U.S. laws prohibit the U.S. from using trade agreements to promote the sale or export of tobacco products. But the U.S proposes to eliminate tariffs on tobacco for TPP countries, which would mean cheaper prices for cigarettes, and increased consumption and use, especially among younger people. Chris Bostic, Policy Director, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), stated, "Ensuring that no provisions of the TPP apply to tobacco controls and tobacco products will protect public health and help to shift authority for global tobacco policy to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)." Tobacco is the only legal consumer product that kills when used as intended. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide, accounting for 6 million preventable deaths annually, and is a major contributor to the global pandemic of non-communicable diseases, including childhood morbidity and mortality. Tobacco use kills 1,200 Americans a day and costs the $193 billion in health-related costs and lost productivity. In contrast, tobacco generates 0.10 percent (one tenth of one percent) of total U.S. annual exports, as large U.S. manufacturers have sold off their international businesses or formed subsidiaries located abroad. Exports of cigarettes and other U.S.-manufactured tobacco products dropped from $3.9 billion in 1999 to $488 million in 2011. Joe Brenner, CPATH Co-Director, stated, "President Obama's 2013 State of the Union message promised to lead an economy for the 21st Century, to reduce preventable deaths among youth, and to conduct policy transparently. Trade negotiations that expand corporate rights and powers, while undermining the public's health, cannot advance sustainable economic growth or wellbeing." Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists American Medical Students Association Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health (CPATH) Human Rights and Tobacco Control Network (HRTCN) International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) Our Bodies Ourselves Physicians for Social Responsibility, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter Prevention Institute Contact: Ellen Shaffer 415-922-6204 ershaffer@cpath.org [Item 6] Trade: US, Malaysia skirmish over tobacco in TPP talks Washington, 7 Sep (IPS/Carey L. Biron) -- Between concluding rounds of negotiations towards the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major US-proposed free trade agreement, a divisive fight has heated up over the extent to which countries should be allowed to regulate the sale of foreign - potentially far cheaper - tobacco products. In duelling proposals offered during the latest round of negotiations, in Brunei late last month, the United States and Malaysia put forward starkly different approaches. While Washington is urging that tobacco products be given no special consideration, the Malaysian government has countered that these items should receive a special "carve-out", exempting them from a broader lifting of trade restrictions. Now, critics of the US proposal are hoping to emphasise the health implications of these proposals ahead of the next 12-country TPP talks, slated to take place here in Washington starting September 18. The administration of President Barack Obama had initially hoped to have a final agreement text by October, but that now looks extremely unlikely. "Under other trade agreements, tobacco companies are currently using their investment provisions to attack public health regulations," Arthur Stamoulis, director of the Citizens Trade Campaign at Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer watchdog, told IPS. "For this reason, many feel there needs to be a broad carve-out in this agreement for tobacco, if public health is going to be protected. Fortunately, as negotiations get further along and the negotiators get into thornier issues, there's a lot more people paying attention to these talks." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a long-time proponent of greater tobacco control, recently suggested that the US proposal could directly contribute to "tens of millions" of deaths globally. The potential results of the US proposal are fairly clear, with repeated evidence going back to at least the 1980s. For instance, according to findings by the Government Accountability Office, the US Congress's main watchdog, after international tobacco companies moved into South Korea in 1989, teenage smoking increased fourfold within the first year. "There's no question about it," Ellen R. Shaffer, co-director of the Centre for Policy Analysis, a group focused on trade and health issues, told IPS. "When you lower tariffs on cigarettes, prices become cheaper, greater numbers of kids and poor people become addicted, and overall health gets worse." Advocates of tougher restrictions are warning that the US scheme would be particularly dangerous to developing countries. Not only could the proposal open these economies to potentially cheap cigarettes coming from other countries, but it would also make them vulnerable to expensive litigation from powerful tobacco interests if these countries try to impose trade restrictions. Smoking rates in the United States and many other developed countries have come down dramatically in recent years, in part on the back of a unique wave of international agreement about tobacco's deleterious health effects. Indeed, the world's only international health accord, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which entered into effect in 2005, has been ratified by 176 countries - including each of the dozen in the TPP negotiations, except for the United States. Yet smoking rates are rising in many developing countries. With tobacco use having led to roughly 100 million deaths during the last century, experts now estimate that it could cause upwards of a billion deaths this century - more than 80 percent of which will likely be in developing and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organisation. In the TPP negotiations, the new US position rescinds an earlier draft proposal that included an exemption for tobacco-control measures. Instead, the new proposal simply recognises that countries are allowed to put in place health regulations, similar to other treaties. It also offers a compromise of sorts. If any tobacco-related trade dispute were to arise due to the imposition of health-related regulations, health officials would be encouraged to engage in consultations before any settlement process goes forward. The US Department of Health and Human Services has signed off on the new proposal, with the agency's deputy secretary, Bill Corr, stating that the "proposed language ... will make a difference for tobacco control and public-health efforts". Yet such provisions still constitute a "retreat ... and fail to prevent tobacco control measures from being challenged as violations of trade agreements," according to Susan M. Liss, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a US advocacy group, reflecting similar sentiments recently expressed by several US health associations. On the other hand, Liss said in a statement, the Malaysia proposal "is appropriate and necessary to stop the tobacco industry from continuing to challenge tobacco control measures as trade violations, a tactic the industry increasingly has used around the world to fight efforts to reduce tobacco use." Indeed, not only are countries such as the United States and Australia currently fighting lawsuits brought by tobacco companies against various tobacco-control laws, but such suits are increasingly being aimed at developing countries. Uruguay, for instance, is currently battling former tobacco giant Phillip Morris over a law that requires particular packaging for cigarettes. "Developing countries are particularly at risk from these trade rules and challenges simply because they do not have the financial and legal wherewithal to defend against trade suits brought against governments," the Center for Policy Analysis's Shaffer says. "The international tobacco industry has changed dramatically in recent years, and this constitutes a two-pronged strategy: first, to shoot down existing tobacco-control regulations and, second, to have a chilling effect on countries that may be thinking about instituting regulations." Shaffer, too, lauds the Malaysian government's proposal, which she says has reportedly met with "some favourable reception, including reportedly from Japan, which would be encouraging given that country's economic strength." Although tobacco no longer makes up a large percentage of the US economy, pressure on the Obama administration surrounding the TPP negotiations has come from business interests worried about a "slippery slope" effect - that an exemption for cigarettes would eventually lead to additional exemptions for a range of other products. The US Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business lobby group, has been increasingly vocal in recent days on the TPP tobacco proposals. "[We risk] opening Pandora's box by setting a precedent that others will try to follow for additional ‘unique' products in ways that could be very damaging to American workers, farmers, and companies," John Murphy, the Chamber's vice president for international affairs, wrote last week. "Following this example, other governments may seek similar treatment for alcoholic beverages, snack foods, genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), or a range of other products - the export of which supports many American jobs."
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