Lobby group welcomes ban on tobacco lobbyists

The doors to the Dutch government have been closed against the tobacco industry and its lobbyists, according to an anti-tobacco lobby group, the Framework Convention Alliance.

In a note posted on its website, the alliance said that while a court in the Netherlands had denied a civil society suit brought against the government because of its contacts with the tobacco industry, the action had produced a new policy that laid out rules for future interactions.

The Youth Smoking Prevention Foundation (YSPF) had apparently challenged government dealings with the industry on the basis of Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

Article 5.3 was quoted as requiring that ‘in setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties [to the convention] shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law’.

Days before the court sat to hear the arguments, the government distributed a document, ‘Clarification of implementation of Article 5.3 of the WHO-Framework Convention’, to both houses of Parliament.

“Although the wording of the document is at some points a little vague, it is now written down how government at all levels – national, regional and local – must behave in relation to the tobacco industry,” said Wanda de Kanter, co-founder and chair of the YSPF.

“It means that from now on the doors of government are closed for the tobacco industry and its lobbyists. This will end the extensive influence of the tobacco industry that time and again tries to raise doubts by issuing defective research and reports.”