Why trade and investment liberalisation may threaten effective tobacco control efforts.

Trade and investment liberalisation in tobacco products oVers no benefits for tobacco control. Thus, if trade and investment liberalisation—as embodied in international agreements or viewed as an economic process—may harm tobacco control, as we believe it might, then trade and investment liberalisation in tobacco is an unhealthy and inappropriate public policy. We support the resolution of the 11th World Conference on Tobacco or Health that called on “the international tobacco control community [to] work vigorously to exclude and remove tobacco and tobacco products from bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that would have negative public health consequences.” We think this position is well supported by the record of the last two decades on trade and tobacco, the text of existing trade agreements, and the threats posed by proposals for expanded trade and investment agreements.