Duty-free under scrutiny

Duty-free sales of tobacco products will be coming under the spotlight as an international protocol on the illegal trade in such products comes into force.
The Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products is the only protocol to have come out of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
In a note on its website, the Duty Free World Council said the protocol mandated research into ‘the extent to which’ duty-free contributes to the illegal trade of tobacco products. This, the Council said, indicated the WHO’s starting assumption was that duty-free was a source of illegal trade.
The Council said it had been leading a global campaign together with other regional associations to communicate to governments of parties to the Protocol that the industry vigorously rejected any claims that duty-free tobacco sales contributed to illegal trade.
“There is no justification in penalising legitimate law-abiding retailers, brands, airports and the maritime trade under the pretext of illicit trade,” Council president Frank O’Connell was quoted as saying.
The Council said that the research should not be carried out until all the signatory countries were aligned on the methodology of the study and that it must be carried out in a fair and objective manner with full industry participation.
Following the ratification of the Protocol, it added, the first meeting of the parties to the Protocol would take place in Geneva in September, when the parties were due to discuss the next steps for implementing the Protocol.