An update from us at COPWATCH, on the final day of COP11.
COP business The Journal shows that discussions are ongoing today for items 4.4 and 4.5. As we have been reporting this week, those are both highly controversial. Will COP manage to reach consensus on those today?
Since yesterday, it appears that there has been a decision on Article 18 (environment). It looks as though we’ll have to wait until COP has ended to see the final decisions.
Some livestreaming is expected today, but it will be dull set piece stuff. The asterisks on the provisional agenda denote what will be streamed:
There’s also a ‘hybrid’ press conference today, at 14.00 CET. We don’t know if that will be accessible to everyone, or just the registered media.
The propaganda briefings ASH seems to have gone home early. Their latest offering is an article about what wasn’t on the agenda, so it doesn’t tell us much about what was.
Seems the NGO’s are chasing tobacco industry funding now, all those Bloombucks just aren’t enough!
GATC’s effort includes their usual regret at Parties not just going along with what they want, expressed in the usual kindergarten teacher tone. And, of course, the awards:
Having championed harm reduction in their opening statement, St Kitts and Nevis have clearly continued their good work behind the closed doors of the committees.
We may issue another update later – but, if not, we’ll be back another time soon.
Welcome back to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11. Here we bring you our observations and impressions on day five.
COP11 agenda progress The penultimate day for COP11, there will be urgency to get agreement on the outstanding agenda items today. The Journal shows that progress is slow on items 4.3 (environment), 4.4 (Articles 9 and 10) and 4.5 (the Secretariat’s attempt to co-opt harm reduction). We are pleased that Parties are taking the time to discuss such important issues thoroughly. Of course, GATC and ASH would not agree, their bulletins from today show considerable frustration that there is any debate.
Decisions have been approved for agenda items 4.1 (the so called ‘forward looking measures) and 4.2 (liability). New decisions had to be drafted for those. We just hope that the final decisions are better than the ones included in the original COP11 documents. We will have to wait to find out: at COP10 the decisions weren’t published until after the meeting had ended, and this COP’s Decisions page is still empty.
This, from the Journal’s report, has been baffling us: “The Chairperson opened the session and gave the opportunity to one Party tomake their statement on agenda item 4.1 which they could not do yesterdaybefore the agenda item was closed.” Why wasn’t the Party given the opportunity to give the statement during the discussions? And, what is the point of giving a statement after an agenda item has been agreed? Odd.
A reminder that Clive Bates has authored an excellent side by side commentary on the annotated agenda, you can find that here.
Agenda item 4.4 (articles 9 and 10) We have written about this in an explainer, here and also this week in COP Live . GATC had urged parties to adopt it without amendment, so they aren’t at all happy that it hasn’t been rushed through. No agreement on Articles 9 and 10 was reached at COP10, is this fail set to be repeated at COP11?
Agenda item 4.5 This is the agenda item based on the Secretariat’s notorious paper on harm reduction (COP11/10).Here is Clive Bates’ overview of that paper:
“The Secretariat has failed to meet the legitimate and sincere request of several Parties fora COP discussion about tobacco harm reduction. It has instead responded with its ownactivist position and poor-quality reasoning. No delegate, whether for or against tobaccoharm reduction, should accept a Convention Secretariat behaving with the dismissiveattitude displayed in this paper.”
EU controversy Leaks indicate that Denmark and the European Commission are seeking to introduce bans on vapes and pouches. The controversy comes just a week after EU Member States agreed on a common position for COP11, a position which did not include a call for global bans on safer nicotine products.
The so-called ‘forward looking measures’ are in a COP document authored by tobacco controllers, people with no expertise in trade – and it showed. It looks as though Kazakhstan has had the temerity to question some of those naïve proposals. From the article – and thanks to Google translate: “Any changes to international trade rules and supply chains, particularly those related to quotas, directly affect industrial plans, create export risks, and limit the potential for job creation.” And: “Kazakhstan called for a dialogue that balances public health goals with socioeconomic realities”
Sounds reasonable, to us
800% budgetary increase We haven’t written much about FCTC COP finances but we can’t let this one pass by without comment. The WHO’s tobacco budget is currently $1.2 billion. And, they wish to increase it – by 800% – to an eye watering $9 billion.
Statements made during livestreamed plenary debate Yesterday’s Good COP 2.0 included an excellent discussion on the statements made by countries and NGO’s during the debate (COP11 agenda item 3) which was livestreamed earlier this week. Host Jeannie Cameron had analysed the statements and divided them into 3 tiers. She found that these 7 countries explicitly mentioned harm reduction in their statements: Albania, Gambia, New Zealand, North Macedonia, St Kitts and St Nevis and the Solomon Islands. A bold move, considering that harm reduction as we (the people most affected) know it has now been thoroughly toxified by the Secretariat and Bloomberg NGO’s.
Watch Jeannie with panellists Marina Murphy, Reem Ibrahim and Nancy Loucas on this link, from 30 minutes in:
Good COP2.0TPA’s Good COP2.0 has just ended. The round up of the final day is here, and you can watch it back on YouTube (link). Here is a recent pic with some of the experts who participated:
Permission given to Copwatch to use this image
Congratulations to everyone involved in this tremendous event!
Welcome back to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11. Here we bring you our observations and impressions on day four.
COP11 business See the official Journal for today’s events, the programme of work and a report on yesterday. From the GATC and ASH bulletins we learn that work continued late into the night. Perhaps the authors went to bed before the work stopped – they don’t report that a decision was reached on 4.1 (the so called ‘forward looking’ measures), we gathered that from the Journal.
The ASH bulletin includes that there is debate ongoing in the discussions on agenda items 4.2 ( Article 19, Liability) and 4.3 (Article 18, Environment).
Decision on 4.1 – the so called ‘forward looking measures’ This is from today’s Journal (day 4):
It will be interesting to see what was agreed, as this was a highly controversial agenda item, as many countries pointed out in their statements in the streamed plenary sessions. (We hope to bring you more on those country statements later, if we get time – there are many more interesting statements than at the last COP)
GATC awards As Jake Maderazo reminds us, in his excellent ‘The Misuse of Tobacco-Control Awards’, the ghastly Orchid and Ashtray awards are orchestrated by an outside observer. That is the role conferred on GATC by the treaty – GATC is merely an ‘outside observer’. Maderazo writes:
“The Global Alliance for Tobacco Control (GATC), which hands out these “awards”, is merely an observer. When outside actors such as the GATC begin to masquerade as scorekeepers and moral arbiters—handing out Orchids and Ashtrays according to a narrow ideological script—the clarity of that architecture erodes.”
Yesterday, Brazil got the pat on the back and Tajikistan the slap on the wrist:
Of course, these awards are designed to influence discussions taking place behind closed doors – thoroughly debasing the complex business of negotiation between sovereign nations. The Orchid is always given for following the Bloomberg funded cabal’s wishes. The Ashtray is more interesting, as it hints at the obstacles to those wishes.
Tajikistan’s ‘sin‘ So, what has Tajikistan done to deserve today’s Ashtray? Their statement from the live streamed plenary debate (3rd session) was fairly innocuous. Their statement included a call for “open evidence-based dialogue on all types of tobacco and nicotine products”, but then, so did many other country statements.
Statement given by Tajikistan in the plenary debate (agenda item 3)
So, the misdemeanour must have occurred behind closed doors. The reason given for putting Tajikistan on the naughty step are that they have dared to suggest that illicit trade might be an obstacle. For anyone following tobacco related events in the real world, the issues around illicit trade are urgent and real – Australia is the poster child for this. But for GATC and the other Bloomberg allies, illicit trade is an inconvenient truth. In Trumpian style, an inconvenient truth simply isn’t a truth and anyone who says otherwise is an enemy.
A reminder to any delegates reading this: “The Parties have not reached any sort of consensus on regulating ENDS or other reduced risk products, other than that they should be regulated in some way – no one disputesthat. The question that the Parties wish to address is how to regulate these products in the publicinterest, taking account of both risks and opportunities, in a world of 1 billion people who smoke,ongoing demand for nicotine, and high potential for illicit trade in response to excessive regulation.” Taken from Clive Bates’ Commentary on FCTC/COP/11/10
GATC sees all products as a risk. This is a denial of the real world evidence that safer alternatives to risky tobacco use are reducing smoking, in countries such as New Zealand, Japan, Sweden and the UK. See Clive Bates’ evidence briefs for policy makers for a thorough look at the evidence available.
And, we’d like to highlight the importance of the Cochrane gold standard reviews. Since its first publication in 2014, the Cochrane Review on e-cigarettes for smoking cessation has been published as a “living systematic review”. It has been regularly updated as new evidence becomes available – the latest was published just ten days ago:
Despite being the gold standard, Cochrane’s review on e-cigarettes is omitted from all WHO and Bloomberg NGO publications – including GATC’s article from today. Another of those inconvenient truths!
And, published in the BMJ just two days ago, Sarah Jackson’s Rapid response brings some common sense to bear on GATC’s excessively precautionary approach:
“Protecting children is essential, and inappropriate youth exposure to nicotine requires balanced regulation. However, using the Convention for the Rights of the Child to justify an overarching goal to reduce vaping among children neglects meaningful harm-reduction benefits and may lead to near identical regulation of e-cigarettes and cigarettes that inadvertently entrenches smoking. A balanced, evidence-led approach that acknowledges a dual goal to also maximise the opportunities of vaping to help adults quit smoking would better advance the Convention’s aims.” Rapid response to: How e-cigarettes compromise children’s human rights, BMJ
Back to the GATC article – notice the emphasis which GATC added to this footnote:
Don’t worry, pharma – GATC has your back!
Ashtrays in the wild We do feel sorry for some of the COP11 delegates – exposed to much misinformation about safer alternatives, it is no wonder they find it hard to quit smoking. Yesterday’s Ola Journal showed an ashtray with signs of recent use, outside the Geneva International Conference Center. (The ashtray was removed, soon after the picture had been published)
Happily, some kind advocates for tobacco harm reduction could pass by the venue later, to demonstrate to COP11 delegates how it’s done (you can thank them later!).
Permission given to Copwatch to use this photo (not to you, Tobacco Tactics)
You are welcome at Good COP 2.0 The conversation you can join is TPA’s Good COP 2.0, which is taking place in Geneva and streamed on YouTube. Everyone is welcome – if you are in Geneva and want to stop by just go to Hotel Royal Geneve and pick up a guest lanyard from the TPA reception desk on the first floor. Check out the programme for the sessions and speakers. Today’s reviewed the highlights from the opening plenary statements, discussed Michael Bloomberg’s philanthro-colonialism, asked why institutions which claim to want an end to smoking oppose practical solutions which can work, and delved into the situation and future of harm reduction in the US, Canada and Mexico.
Visit TPA’s YouTube channel to stream the live sessions and also watch back on the past two days. And, catch this morning’s RegWatch special coverage of Good COP 2.0 here.
Welcome back to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11. Here we bring you our observations and impressions on day three.
COP11 business Check out the official Journal 3 for today’s official business and a report on yesterday.
NGO bulletins / brainwashings As is usual, the NGO briefings are revealing more than the official Journal does about the mood music at FCTC COP.
Today we focus on GATC’s day three bulletin, but do also check out ASH’s report on day 2, to see just how entitled these NGO’s feel to denigrate sovereign Parties (“the antis”), who do not agree with them. An example: “apparently the Parties opposed either didn’t read or didn’t understand, bellowing that the decision is an assault on sovereignty” Those are delegates of our elected governments that ASH are referring to!
EU common position GATC’s bulletin begins by calling out the dissenting EU member states. This is curious, because the deliberations around reaching the EU’s common position on COP are supposed to be private. Whilst it is true that there have been several leaks relating to the doomed struggles to reach a common position – the so called ‘forward looking measures’ having provoked such a backlash – GATC’s privileged position should prevent it from revealing what should be confidential information.
This section ends with the appeal that “the world is watching”. Sorry to break this to you, GATC, but…thanks to the secretive nature of the COP meetings, thanks to there being more compelling events for the world’s media to focus on, and thanks to the fact that people who smoke have been so thoroughly stigmatised – no, the world is not watching. The world doesn’t care much about FCTC COP. But actually, we suspect that suits you just fine.
GATC is misleading Parties on the so called ‘forward looking measures’ This relates to agenda item 4.1 – which is concerned with FCTC article 2.1.
The GATC bulletin states that:
“1 (a) of the draft decision mentions, several times, that Parties are simply invited to “consider the forward-looking tobacco control measures… with a view to their potential adoption and implementation by Parties.”
What GATC fails to mention is that 1 ( C ) of that same draft decision asks Parties
“to report, as part of their reporting obligations on their implementation of theConvention, on implementation of forward-looking tobacco control measures that expand orintensify approaches to tobacco control, and that may be contemplated within the scope ofArticle 2.1, including lessons and outcomes arising from the implementation of suchMeasures;”
For that draft decision see annex 3 in FCTC/COP11/5
GATC’s omission is disingenuous, to put it politely. As Clive Bates writes, “There should not be an FCTC reporting obligation on measures that fall outside the FCTC.” Once there are reporting obligations, there is political pressure to implement the measures. See Clive Bates’ WHO FCTC COP-11 Forward-looking tobacco control measures a delegate’s guide for much more on this agenda item.
The vile ashtray award As we suspected, there were just too many rebels amongst the Parties yesterday to single any of them out. So, GATC decided to award a group of unnamed parties today – but on the entirely false premise that 2.1 would not impose new obligations. As we have shown above, it would.
Articles 9 and 10 GATC urges parties to adopt the Bureau’s draft decision on Articles 9 & 10 without amendment. Not once do they mention that the guidelines are only partial, they are not finished.
Key guidelines on toxicity and attractiveness haven’t been developed. If developed, they would highlight the vast differences in risk between combustible and harmful oral tobaccos and the safer nicotine products, such as vapes, snus, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products.
Completing the guidelines would bring in harm reduction, something that GATC, the secretariat and the other Bloomberg NGOs wish to avoid. Indeed, it is the issues around harm reduction which has prevented progress being made on the guidelines.
See our explainer for more on this agenda item: The saga of Articles 9 and 10. Our article includes a link to the partial guidelines – which you won’t find in the GATC materials.
Parties have finally noticed that they are being shut out Many parties in their opening statements expressed their wish to have more involvement in the work of FCTC between the COPs. They are registering their displeasure at being shut out by the secretariat and Bloomberg funded NGOs. Here are just two examples, but this sentiment was voiced many times during the debate:
“However, the future of the Framework Convention must be shaped by a process led by the parties, an inclusive and transparent process which is based on good governance. The strength of the convention resides in its multilateral nature. Its legitimacy depends on the full and equal participation of all parties, whatever their level of development or their institutional capacity.” Guinea-Bissau
“Parties must be meaningfully involved in the preparation of reports, the development of proposals, and monitoring of progress. This includes timely access to documentation, opportunities for consultation, and transparency in how inputs are considered.” Antigua and Barbuda
These secret meetings with cherry picked participants are not a recent development – that article is from 2022 – but it seems that more and more Parties have finally had enough.
This lack of participation by the Parties in FCTC is illustrated perfectly by the stark fact that there arecurrently no working groups at FCTC COP. We have written about the secretariat’s fondness for expert groups over working groups a few times, recently here and here. The main point is that a working group is made up of parties, an expert group is comprised of “experts” chosen by the secretariat.
GATC’s misrepresentation of the supporters of harm reduction Ignore that people like us adopted tobacco harm reduction, long before the tobacco industry sold any reduced risk nicotine products. We consumers have been calling for THR to be included in FCTC COP for many years, but we are ignored and shut out. Not one group representing people who smoke or people who have quit smoking using nicotine products has ever been granted observer status at any of these COPs.
We want here to take the opportunity to thank Canada – whose statement included that: “We must continue to address tobacco related inequities and to listen and engage with people with lived experience.”
More of that, please! GATC also ignores that harm reduction is already in the treaty, in article 1 (d):
GATC on science Again, misleading – GATC fails to mention there is a vast body of science not produced by industry which demonstrates that vapes, snus, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products are far less harmful to health than combustible and harmful oral products. For a comprehensive yet accessible collection of resources on that, please see Clive Bates’ Tobacco harm reduction: evidence briefs for policymakers. In September the FDA made an announcement, which included this:
Does GATC know more about science than the FDA? We don’t think so – but they certainly have the chutzpah to think they might.
You are welcome at Good COP 2.0 The conversation you can join is TPA’s Good COP 2.0, which is taking place in Geneva and streamed on YouTube. Everyone is welcome – if you are in Geneva and want to stop by just go to Hotel Royal Geneve and pick up a guest lanyard from the TPA reception desk on the first floor. Check out the program for the sessions and speakers. Today’s looked at the scientific, consumer, and regulatory realities facing more than 600 million smokers across the Asia-Pacific region.
Visit TPA’s YouTube channel to stream the live sessions and also watch back on the past two days. And, catch RegWatch’s special coverage of Good COP 2.0 here:
Welcome back to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11. Here we bring you our observations and impressions from day two.
Live streaming The live streaming of agenda item 3 continued in this morning’s session. The asterisks on the agenda denote which sessions will be live streamed. So, no more streaming is expected until the final day.
You can access the videos for all the live streamed sessions on the COP11 homepage:
Country statements Started yesterday, these continued during the 3rd plenary session today. More on those another time but we were really pleased to hear Albania, Guinea-Bissau, North Macedonia, Guyana and St Kitts and Nevis push back against the edicts of the Bloomberg NGO’s and the Secretariat. Internet issues caused us to lose track but World Vapers Alliance again did tremendous work on live tweeting, see their thread here: https://x.com/vapers_alliance/status/1990704551004156157
Propaganda briefs Yesterday we correctly predicted that New Zealand would get the ashtray award. Given how many Parties rebelled today, we wouldn’t like to predict who will get it tomorrow – could five or more ashtrays get awarded? Although…bullying surely works best when parties can be singled out, not when there are so many of them. As a preventative measure, it certainly doesn’t seem to be working as intended – could this be the beginning of the end for these notorious and nasty awards?
Our baddies award for today would surely go to the International Pharmaceutical Federation delegate, who gave this statement to COP :
“May I categorically state for the record that the misnomer of harm reduction is completely at odds with therapies available through pharmacist consultation and please know Madam Chair that pharmacists will take every opportunity to counter this narrative of greed and death.”
How can that NOT be viewed as a conflict of interest?
GATC’s propaganda briefing is all about NGO activity and pushing the party line – we didn’t see any reporting on what Parties had said during the actual COP proceedings (rather than the NGO planned side events). However, that briefing is rather long and we confess we didn’t get through it all – did anyone?
Alongside that, do look at the list of NGO participants at COP11, in the Provisional list of participants, (page 49 onwards). These include: African Tobacco Control Alliance – 35 delegates Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids – 31 delegates European Network for Smoking Prevention – 38 delegates Global Alliance for Tobacco Control – 61 delegates Smoke-free Partnership – 10 delegates University of Bath – 12 delegates Vital Strategies – 6 delegates And yet – not one single organisation representing people with lived experience of smoking or quitting smoking using consumer products has ever graced an FCTC COP participants list.
Keeping track of COP11 progress Now that COP11’s business is being conducted well behind closed doors we recommend you look at the daily official Journals (here’s today’s), to get a sense of how the agenda is progressing. From some of the statements given by Parties earlier, we predict that there are stormy seas ahead for the secretariat and Bloomberg funded NGOs – we don’t see them getting many of their pet policies adopted. Let’s hope we are right.
Good COP 2.0 The conversation you can join is TPA’s Good COP 2.0, which is taking place in Geneva and streamed on YouTube. Everyone is welcome – if you are in Geneva and want to stop by just go to Hotel Royal Geneve and pick up a guest lanyard from the TPA reception desk on the first floor. Today’s speakers have included David Williams, Martin Cullip, Marina Murphy, Maria Papaioannoy, Gabriel Oke, Liza Katsiashvili, Heneage Mitchell, Jeffrey Zamora, Carmen Escrig, Diego Verrastro, Julio Ruades, Mark Tyndall, Roberto Sussman, Konstantinos Farsalinos, Juan Jose Cirio, Sharifa Ezat, Benjamin Elks and Jeannie Cameron. Tomorrow’s programme will have an Asia focus.
We haven’t had much time to look at this but notice that Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids has a whopping 31 representatives at COP11, and the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) has 38.
Live stream According to the agenda, today and the last day are the only times we can expect to see the COP11 proceedings being live streamed (or, ‘webcast’, as it is referred to on the COP11 home page). Today we saw the opening being streamed, the adoption of the agenda and also the various country statements given at agenda item 3. UPDATE – there will be more livestreaming on day 2 (Tuesday) as agenda item 3 is not finished.
Also live streamed were two side events which are not part of the agenda (though designed to influence outcomes at COP): the Ministerial roundtable (we already wrote about that here) and the Strategic Dialogue. It was easy to get these two confused, as they seemed to have the same speakers and were announced in quite different places on the COP11 site. We hope to get time to discuss those in more detail later in the week, but in the meantime please look at World Vapers Alliance’s excellent thread on X: https://x.com/vapers_alliance/status/1990409941132206241
The agenda The agenda was adopted quickly (unlike at COP10), to audible jubilation from the officials sitting at the front. The agenda is here but consider instead looking at Clive Bates’ commentary on the annotated agenda, which includes analysis of most of the main items.
The country statements These are termed ‘general debate statements’ in the agenda but it’s not a debate in the usual sense of the word. Delegates from various countries stood up to give an update on their progress, one after the other, but there was no discussion. We and other tobacco harm reduction advocates listened hard, as this is the only opportunity we have to hear what our governments wish to say at COP11.
We are analysing the statements now and hope to bring you more on those later in the week – but the headlines are that:
New Zealand gets today’s Copwatch award 🏅, with Serbia as the runner up 🎖️
…and we are bitterly disappointed in the UK and Japan, for not highlighting the role that safer nicotine products have played in their impressive reductions in smoking prevalence.
The Philippines didn’t stick its neck out this time either, but that’s probably the effect of the five previously awarded ‘dirty ashtrays’ (never underestimate the power of the official NGO’s at FCTC COP).
Propaganda briefings The Global Alliance on Tobacco Control published the first of their bulletins / brainwashings this morning – see here. It’s basically a compilation of their greatest COP11 hits, an attempt to push the Parties into following their and the FCTC secretariat’s diktats. This, sitting on that page, looks to us like a warning to Parties not to step out of line:
We hope to be wrong, but fear that the ashtray will be going New Zealand’s way tomorrow.
Good COP 2.0 The conversation you can join is TPA’s Good COP 2.0, which is taking place in Geneva and streamed on YouTube. Everyone is welcome – if you are in Geneva and want to stop by just go to Hotel Royal Geneve and pick up a guest lanyard from the TPA reception desk on the first floor. Today’s speakers have included David Williams, Martin Cullip, Tikki Pangestu, Roger Bate, Clive Bates, Kurt Yeo, Juan Jose Cirion, Alberto Hernandez, Adam Hoffer, Benjamin Elks, and Carissa Düring. You can catch up on those discussions on this YouTube link.
Well – we survived! Copwatch has been taking a breather, to digest what happened last month at COP10. Getting confirmation of what had happened took time, because the decisions were slow to arrive on the official website – presumably written to paint the event in the most positive light possible.
The live coverage on these pages revealed frustration amongst the FCTC ranks which was echoed by the head of the Secretariat, Adriana Blanco Marquizo, remarking at the end of the conference that her organisation had “survived”.
FCTC Pravda hailed “historic decisions” and announced that the meeting was a triumph, as it always does, but articles published by its allies expressed a lot of disappointment.
Where were all the delegates?
Even the FCTC Secretariat’s newsroom couldn’t hide the fact that there were deficiencies with the conference. Over 190 delegations would have been expected to arrive for the original staging in November, but the official record only counted “representatives from 142 Parties” as being in attendance.
Anyone who watched the live streams would have noticed a significant number of empty seats and made that assumption anyway. Copwatch estimates that there were up to 700 delegates missing between FCTC boasts in November and the official count post-event.
All the more amusing, then, that the WHO’s sole anti-vaping holdout in the Philippines, Pia Cayetano, has condemned the “huge” delegation sent by her country. One would have thought that sending a large delegation was a sign of support for the event. Copwatch suspects her objection would not have materialised if the delegates were paid-up members of Cayetano’s anti-harm reduction club rather than selected by the Philippines government to defend its admirable policy of embracing reduced risk products.
Interesting country statements
Cayetano was no doubt still seething at the Philippines’ prominent role during country progress statements in the (delayed) opening plenary. The country was one of many which challenged the WHO to consider harm reduction as a valid option to reduce the harms of combustible use. Furthermore, their statement made reference to Article 1(d) of the FCTC treaty which states categorically that harm reduction is one of the pillars of tobacco control, something that the FCTC authorities would rather ignore.
They were not the only delegation to do so. Disappointed pro-WHO groups moaned that “a number of countries, led by Guatemala and including the Philippines, China, Russia, Antigua and Barbuda, echoed industry talking points.” Translation: They didn’t fall into line with the favoured extremist policies suggested by the WHO.
Copwatch could add New Zealand, Guatemala, Armenia and El Salvador to that list, amongst others, and St Kitts and Nevis who played a starring role. More on that further down.
What triumphs?
But firstly, what were the triumphs that Adriana Blanco Marquizo was eager to trumpet?
Article 18 She was most enthused by the consensus achieved over Article 18 on the environment. The decision states that Parties must “have due regard to the protection of the environment and the health of persons in relation to the environment in respect of tobacco cultivation and manufacture within their respective territories.” It is very vague and will be something which is probably already being considered at national level .
Article 19 Likewise, the consensus decision on Article 19 which recommends Parties “strengthen their criminal and civil liability regimes, including administrative measures, to ensure accountability and deterrence, improve access to justice, and allow for effective remedies for those affected by tobacco harms.” Copwatch wonders what enthusiasm there will be for the many Parties with nationalised tobacco industries to take themselves to court.
Article 2.1
Article 2.1 was already a part of the treaty, but was bolstered by being included on the agenda. The decision recommends that Parties “identify and describe forward-looking tobacco control measures and measures that expand or intensify approaches to tobacco control as they apply to tobacco products.” Copwatch has a great idea. How about Parties identify harm reduction and the promotion of reduced risk products as a proven way of reducing the harms of combustible tobacco use? It fits the description perfectly.
Article 13 There was also a decision on Article 13 on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, mostly concerned with tackling posts on digital and social media channels which, again, is being discussed in many countries already.
Articles 9 & 10
One agenda item on which Parties could not reach consensus was on Articles 9 & 10 regarding regulation of contents and disclosure of tobacco products. Debate was ongoing for the entire week, taking up so much time that other items had to be shifted to the workload of Committee B for the duration.
An item in the GATC day 2 bulletin, written by Rob Cunningham of the Canadian Cancer Society and Deborah Arnott of Action on Smoking and Health in the UK, insisted that “Articles 9 and 10 deal with tobacco products, not e-cigarettes or other nicotine products.” Yet the agenda item encouraged delegates to consider report FCTC/COP/10/7 during discussions which, as Copwatch has written before, comments extensively on nicotine pouches and disposable vapes; dishonestly states that there is no evidence vaping can help people quit smoking; that even if they do, it does not constitute smoking cessation; that flavours are only attractive to adolescents; and points delegates to cherry-picked research on reduced risk products in the TobReg9 report.
Surely that is all wasted work if, as claimed, Articles 9 & 10 are not concerned with novel products? Perhaps this is why St Kitts and Nevis not only argued that the WHO needs to define harm reduction, but also introduced a proposal that Article 1(d) should be taken into account in deliberations over articles 9 & 10. And then the fight started.
Despite 5 days of debate, no consensus could be reached and they will go through it all again at COP11 next year.
Who wants to host COP11?
All in all, the decisions which reached consensus were rather limp and the conference in general rather underwhelming. Not particularly deserving of the term “historic”.
Finally, Copwatch would have liked to inform our readers where COP11 will be taking place but, sadly, the host country was not announced in the closing plenary. Evidently, there was no interest from any of the Parties and no applications to host were received.
One wonders what countries don’t find appealing about playing host to a two week opaque talking shop which attracts no tourists or media interest, nor offers infrastructure benefits, but comes with a $5 million price tag.
At nine pages, it is unusually long. Here are our observations:
Articles 9 & 10 (agenda item 6.1) has been postponed to COP11. This is no surprise – we have been reporting all week on how slow the progress on that agenda item has been.
There is a lot still to get through in the first session today, and only 3 hours to do it
An item of particular interest to us, Novel and emerging tobacco products (agenda item 6.3) is not resolved and is carried over to today’s business
Late evening meetings have been needed to force decisions, including on who the next Head of the Secretariat will be (agenda item 8.8) `
Please let us know if you think we have missed anything interesting.
There are still no decisions for this week posted on the Decisions page. So, we will keep watching for when those appear.
Today’s GATC bulletin From today’s GATC bulletin we learn that:
COP is expected to take up two sessions today, finishing in the evening. We had reported yesterday that there were still a lot of agenda items to get through.
Philippines is the latest country to be dignified with a ‘dirty ashtray’ award, for ‘its brazen use of tobacco industry tactics of obstinate dispute and delay throughout the COP’. The Philippines is included in our Interesting country statements article, their statement at the livestreamed debate included:
‘we emphasize the importance of a tailored multi-sectoral approach to FCTC implementation, acknowledging Article 1D of FCTC, varying national context and priorities, and domestic legislation.’ The link to the Philippines statement is here.
GATC indignation The GATC bulletin displays a palpable sense of indignation. Frustrated that the decision on articles 9 & 10 was deferred to COP11, the editorial complained of “just the amount of diversion and distraction that seemed intentionally disruptive at times.”
The author was particularly irritated that the term “harm reduction” was used. The adoring FCTC fan club has deluded itself that harm reduction is a tobacco industry fabrication rather than a real life concept with its own Wikipedia page and is an obligation (much ignored) of the FCTC treaty in article 1d of the preamble.
The editorial also claimed that parties were “confused” about the difference between a working group and an expert group. To clarify for our readers, the former is a group open to all Parties to join, whereas the latter is a group of so-called ‘experts’ cherry-picked by the Convention Secretariat to force through its perverse ideology. See Clive Bates’ Commentary on the annotated agenda (page 5) for more on that.
GATC’s assessment of the week
The bulletin also carries an account of the experience of a first-time COP attendee from the Philippines. Having been suitably brainwashed, she moaned about how delegates had not clamped down hard enough on “electronic smoking devices”.
“Clearly, the tobacco industry is creating a new generation of nicotine addiction with these emerging products”, she claimed, blissfully ignorant of the fact that tobacco companies provide a tiny proportion of the vaping market and that the products have been saving millions of lives worldwide.
Remember, you are paying for this delusion through your taxes.
Will there be any live streaming from COP10 today? This tile has appeared on the COP10 website, so it looks as though a press conference will be streamed:
We had thought that the final session might be streamed, and perhaps it will. However, it is unlikely to be as interesting as the debate we saw on days one and two this week, which featured the statements from some of the Parties.
The announcement of where COP11 will be held will come later. That honour probably won’t be going to a Dirty Ashtray award winner.
From the Journal we learn that ‘Implementation of Articles 9 & 10’ (agenda item 6.1) is still unresolved; Committee A will be dealing with it yet again today. We reported on this several times this week. If you are in Committee A and you are reading this – do look at page 5 of Clive Bates’ Commentary on the annotated agenda for a succinct outline of the issues.
Committee A is also discussing ‘Novel and emerging tobacco products’ (agenda item 6.3) today. Again, if anyone from Committee A is here, do read pages 9-11 of Clive Bates’ Commentary on the annotated agenda for his expert view on that.
Both Committees have had evening sessions added, in order to get through their business. It is good to see that the agenda items are being properly discussed, and the WHO and Secretariat’s proposals are not just being waved through.
According to the Programme of work in today’s Journal, the plan is to clear agenda items up to and including item 8. That would leave what are basically announcements for the plenary / closing session tomorrow. According to the Preliminary Journal, tomorrow’s plenary session will be held either in the morning or in the afternoon:
We just hope that Red Bull is on hand – there is still a lot of business to get through.
The thorny issue of harm reduction at COP10
It is evident that the prohibitionists at COP are getting a hard time over the issue of tobacco harm reduction (THR). Many of the statements made by Parties in the livestreamed debate referenced it, suggesting trouble ahead for those who want harsh restrictions applied to safer nicotine products. The NGO’s are on the back foot. The European Respiratory Society (ERS) felt compelled to put out a statement on THR this week, asserting that ‘it cannot recommend “harm reduction” as a population-based strategy to reduce smoking and aid quitting’. (Sorry, ERS, the ship has already sailed: there are millions of us globally who have left smoking behind, thanks to THR.)
GATC published an article titled ‘Harm reduction is at the heart of the treaty’ in their latest bulletin. Those of us who practise THR would agree that harm reduction is central to the treaty – after all, it is covered in article 1 d of the FCTC:
Image credit: @vapingit
However, that is all we can agree with in GATC’s article, in which they appear to misunderstand what harm reduction is about, let alone THR.
‘the tobacco control community should not reject the idea of harm reduction per se but we should learn from the best practices of proven public health oriented measures while preventing the tobacco industry from hijacking that important term’
Go Guyana! Guyana is in GATC’s bad books today, for ‘repeated grandstanding, time-wasting interventions that ignored legal advice on the content of the FCTC and rules of procedure of the COP’.
Country statements – videos sCOPe has compiled a YouTube playlist with the videos of the statements made by countries in Asia Pacific. Watch (and share!) those from here: CoP 10 Country Statements – Asia Pacific
The Journal includes an overview of what business the COP will address for the day, and a report on the previous day. From the report section, we see that Committee A’s deliberations over agenda item 6.1, concerning Articles 9 & 10, are still not resolved:
Also, that two agenda items have now been transferred from Committee A to Committee B – an indication that the discussions over item 6.1 are taking much longer than anticipated.
We have also noticed that the Decisions section on the COP10 website has no documents from this week- is this because no decisions have been made, or because decisions haven’t yet been published?
Canada, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, New Zealand, Philippines, St Kitts and Nevis and the United Kingdom are all featured in there, and we have linked to a separate image file for each statement.
NGOs behaving badly We are so bored of writing about them but they will keep on doing awful stuff.
GATC tweeted its Golden Orchid and Dirty Ashtray awards just before the sessions started – clearly intended to intimidate the Parties as they got down to COP business:
We assume that Singapore has been obediently pushing for the Expert group – see our earlier update for more on that. However, we have no idea what the Dominican Republic’s perceived sins are.
Media coverage on COP10 Media interest in COP is picking up a bit. This article from ULYS media in Kazakhstan describes an incident during one of the live streamed sessions:
“Jamilya Sadykova, a well-known anti-tobacco activist in Kazakhstan, appeared on the monitor and took a place in the delegation hall with representatives of our country. In this peculiar queue to the podium of the conference, she, violating etiquette, tried to attract attention to herself and tried to communicate with the head of the Kazakh delegation from the Ministry of Health.
– This is not the first time. There have already been similar incidents at other COPs when Jamilya took it upon herself to make statements on behalf of the Republic of Kazakhstan, explain members of the delegation.
They are trying to understand what goals Sadykova is pursuing and assume that these are her personal interests associated with private organizations and the American billionaire Michael Bloomberg.”
Delegates behaving badly at COP, who knew?! Do read the full article, it also reports on demonstrations by farmers outside the Convention Centre.
Panama authorities T-shirt crackdown There was a commotion on Tuesday as Panamanian authorities flexed their muscles. Panama Radio reported that “the Public Health team of the Metropolitan Health Region carried out an operation in four hotels in the town after a complaint about the distribution of pamphlets and t-shirts focused on the consumption of tobacco and its derivatives.” This was apparently unacceptable “because it affects the public health of the population.”
Copwatch has discovered the nature of these lethal materials. They are t-shirts worn by vaping consumer advocates and flyers produced by consumer associations to be handed out to delegates at COP explaining salient points of harm reduction and politely asking them to consider consumer concerns. The Panamanian public are no doubt reassured that the full force of the state has been employed to stamp out such dangerous threats to the safety of the country’s citizens.
Copwatch understands that the Good COP event at the Central Panama Hotel in Casco Viejo was visited by representatives of the Bloomberg-funded Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids yesterday. They were greeted by Taxpayers Protection Alliance staff and invited to register for the event. Sadly, they left soon after but we hear their names are recorded at the TPA reception desk and their lanyards are available to pick up at their convenience.
The agenda items included in yesterday’s Journal included several for Committee A, under ‘Item 6 Treaty and technical matters’. This included item 6.1 Implementation of Articles 9 and 10 of the WHO FCTC.
We wrote about this agenda item in our update yesterday, asking: Will Parties relinquish control to the Expert group (Articles 9 & 10)? From the GATC bulletin Day 4 we learn that there has been a struggle in Committee A. GATC is very annoyed 😂
“We appeared to be in some sort of dystopian COP yesterday in Committee A – was anyone else in the same alternate universe we were in? A world where COP Rules of Procedure can be blatantly ignored, the scope of FCTC Articles magically expanded, advice from WHO legal rejected and the entire history of how the COP operates forgotten or thrown out the window?”
The discussions over Articles 9 & 10 did not go according to the Canadian NGO’s plan:
“We would like to take this opportunity to remind Parties of the necessity of adopting the proposed draft decision in relation to Articles 9 and 10”
The discussion has taken up a day and a half!
That draft decision includes Parties surrendering control to an Expert group, on a very weak mandate. In reference to this Clive Bates wrote:
Copwatch is delighted to hear that Committee A is discussing this thoroughly. It is a relief to hear that some Parties in Committee A are conscientiously considering decisions which affect millions of lives – and not being railroaded by the Secretariat, the Bureau and unelected NGOs.
Country statements Of huge interest to COPWATCH’s consumer advocate audience has been the statements given by the countries, during agenda item 5. These have been live streamed over days one and two.
All three videos can still be viewed on the COP10 home page, look for these tiles:
Later we will bring you excerpts from the transcripts, highlighting those statements which mention harm reduction.
If anyone is producing video clips of the individual country statements please let us know – we would love to include those in upcoming Copwatch updates
Organised by the Bloomberg funded NGOs and designed to pressurise the Parties, it is good to see that these official side events are getting a healthy reaction on social media.
