Action on Smoking and Health
A National Charitable Antismoking &
Nonsmokers' Rights Organization
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The US Position

· The Bush administration has been criticized of being tobacco friendly by NGOs and delegates. The United States delegation negotiating the proposed tobacco treaty continued to take positions that protect the interests of the tobacco industry rather than public health around the world. The US government is unwilling to accept most strong provisions and want to water the treaty down. The US has taken the tobacco industry´s side and is going against most of the rest of the countries, where there is an incredibly strong shift toward a public-health approach.

· The U.S. has been criticized by some countries for their lack of support of international treaties and have pointed out that not only is the U.S. hindering the process, if history repeats itself, it will not sign the treaty after all is said and done. Since the United States' has historically demonstrated lack of support of international treaties. (The US did not ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, although President Clinton signed it; it did not become a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; it did not join the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women; it did not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child; it still has not signed or ratified many core conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO); it withdrew, unilaterally, from the ABM treaty; it did not join the Ottawa Convention banning land mines; it did not sign the agreement creating the International Criminal Court; and it did not join the Kyoto Treaty on global warming.

· One of ASH board of directors who attended the negotiations stated of the US position: "It is obvious that the US at most wants a declaration of principles and no interference in trade, no requirement for health warnings, no restriction (let alone a ban) on advertising, no infringement on sovereignty or "States Rights," no right to litigate, no secretariat to administer the treaty, no powers for the signatories to establish rules to enforce or even monitor the effectiveness of the treaty".

· As professor Banzhaf suggested another reason why we should not make the FCTC dependent on the signature of the US. There is little the FCTC (especially if tailored to the wishes of the US) would add to the fight against tobacco in the US. The anti-tobacco movement is well established in the US and it does not need the FCTC. On the other hand a strong FCTC can be an enormous boost to the anti-tobacco movement in developing countries, to help them counter the marketing power of the tobacco industry. The treaty has the potential to help people at local jurisdictions worldwide build pressure with local laws, just as what happened in California, where the growth of city ordinances led to the strong state law.

· However, the US may be one of the most important sources of funding after the FCTC is signed. For this reason it may not be possible to fully exclude the US from the negotiations