18.0 Background to the FCTC

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The 'devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke' are a truly global problem.1 Article 3

Over the past few decades, the tobacco epidemic has spread across the world, facilitated 'through a variety of complex factors with cross-border effects', including trade liberalisation, direct foreign investment, global marketing, transnational tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and the international movement of contraband and counterfeit cigarettes.1 Foreword The globalisation of the tobacco epidemic has had profound effects. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that, of people who are alive today, 650 million will eventually be killed by smoking, half in middle age (35–69 years).2 Tobacco causes the deaths of approximately 13,000 people every day.2 Assuming constant prevalence of tobacco use, WHO projects that 'between 2000 and 2025 the number of smokers will rise from approximately 1.2 billion to more than 1.7 billion and the annual number of deaths, which is currently estimated at about 5 million, will almost double in 20 years'.2 p 6 Most of these deaths will occur in developing countries, where the economic impacts of the tobacco epidemic—increased social, welfare and health care spending by governments, and significant loss of income to families—are felt particularly acutely.3,4,5,6,7

Recognising that 'the spread of the tobacco epidemic is a global problem with serious consequences for public health that calls for the widest possible international cooperation and the participation of all countries in an effective, appropriate and comprehensive international response',1 Preamble the international community undertook the negotiation of a treaty to provide a global framework for tobacco control measures. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)—which was adopted in 2003, came into force in 2005, and is now one of the most widely supported treaties in the history of the United Nations—is the first and only treaty ever to be negotiated under the auspices of WHO. Its objective is to 'protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke by providing a framework for tobacco control measures to be implemented by the Parties at the national, regional and international levels in order to reduce continually and substantially the prevalence of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke'.1 Article 3

As of August 2007 the FCTC had 149 Parties.[1] Under international law, each of the Parties—having ratified, accepted, approved or acceded to the FCTC—must perform, in good faith, all obligations contained in the Convention.8 Article 26 Parties are also encouraged, under Article 2.1, to implement measures beyond those required by the Convention in order to better protect public health. In addition, 28 countries had signed the FCTC, but had not at that time ratified, accepted or approved it.[2] In signing the Convention, these countries have undertaken, as a matter of international law, not to defeat the object and purpose of the Convention.8 Article 18 As stated in the foreword to the FCTC, signatories also 'indicate that they will strive in good faith to ratify, accept, or approve it, and show political commitment not to undermine the objectives set out in it.'