FCTC to pull the blinds down further

The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has proposed barring delegates with ties to state-owned tobacco firms from its Conference of the Parties (CoP), which is due to meet in Delhi next week, according to a story by Duff Wilson and Aditya Kalra for Reuters.

The bar, which has been trailed for some time, would exclude from the meeting delegates employed by state-owned tobacco companies or those otherwise ‘working to advance the interests of the tobacco industry’.

It could restrict delegations sent by countries such as China and Vietnam, where governments own cigarette companies and have in the past sent representatives linked to the industry.

Any such members of the 180 delegations at the November 7-12 conference ‘would be requested to leave the premises’, according to an October 17 official communication from the FCTC secretariat.

Past conferences have barred en masse members of the public and the press.

But previously they have not barred employees of state-owned tobacco companies included in national delegations.

At the most recent CoP, in Moscow in 2014, China’s 18-person delegation had four members from the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.

The Reuters story is at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-who-tobacco-exclusive-idUSKBN12Y0RZ