Thank You for Not Smoking

The passage of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, or FCTC, offers a critical case study of how international law can be harnessed to address public health issues. Heather Wipfli is author of “Global War on Tobacco: Mapping the World's First Public Health Treaty,” and an excerpt of her book was published in Foreign Affairs. With nearly 6 million tobacco-related deaths in 2013 alone, the substance represents the world’s leading cause of preventable death. Previous World Health Assembly resolutions on tobacco control lacked legally binding authority, allowing transnational tobacco companies to expand into low- and middle-income countries without effective tobacco control programs, such as Uruguay, Namibia and Togo. The FCTC, adopted in 2003, established a set of universal standards on tobacco’s production, sale, distribution, marketing and taxation. Such norms led governments to adopt FCTC-relevant policies as part of their own national legislation. Public health experts suggest such policies could save 7.5 million lives by 2050 and motivate philanthropic donors to invest in tobacco control. The FCTC agreement could serve as a model for addressing other non-communicable diseases. – YaleGlobal