Here are Copwatch’s #FCTCCOP11 articles, listed with the most recent first.
COP Live Day Five #COP11
Our observations and impressions from day five. Tick tock on the COP11 agenda, EU controversy, 800% budget increase, Kazakhstan gets too real, farewell and thank you to Good COP2.0
COP Live Day Four #COP11
Our observations and impressions from day four: Decisions, decisions!, pharma friends, helping #COP11 delegates quit smoking, inconvenient truths, and more.
COP Live Day Three #COP11
Our observations and impressions from day three: the chutzpah of GATC, Parties stand up for themselves, science denialism, what’s really in the documents, and more.
COP Live Day Two #COP11
Welcome back to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11. Here we bring you our observations and impressions from day two.
COP Live Day One #COP11
Welcome to Copwatch’s COP Live reporting on FCTCCOP11. Here we bring you our observations and impressions on day one.
Copwatch’s preliminary journal #FCTCCOP11
Our readership, however, is mostly people who are denied entry to the official proceedings. So, here is Copwatch’s preliminary journal, with useful information for unofficial COP observers like us.
Philanthro-Colonialism to Be On Display at COP11
If the WHO FCTC truly values equity and participation, it must recognize the hypocrisy of allowing billionaire-backed NGOs to dominate the conversation while Indigenous voices are tokenized and marginalized. Harm reduction, when guided by communities rather than donors, is not an industry tool, it is liberation.
Dubiously Funded NGOs Queue Up to Mislead COP11 Delegates
The FCTC Secretariat has published the schedule for side events to be held during breaks at COP11 (It is downloadable at this page). As you might expect, they promise to be a masterclass in manipulation.
Desperate FCTC Grandees Now Following the Anti-Vaxxer Playbook
The echo chamber becomes ever more enclosed
As the next Conference of the Parties meeting (COP11) approaches next week, planned activities arranged by the FCTC Secretariat are becoming increasingly unhinged.
The saga of Articles 9 and 10
Articles 9 and 10 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control cover the regulation of contents and disclosure of tobacco products. This will be discussed at the upcoming COP11 under agenda item 4.4. This article looks at some of the documents associated with this thorny agenda item, seeking enlightenment on why there has been so little progress.
FCTC bureaucrats have decided national delegations just get in the way
Unfortunately, when it comes to COP11 agenda item 4.4 concerning “Regulation of contents and disclosure of tobacco products” (Articles 9 & 10), the FCTC Secretariat seems to have forgotten that fundamental principle of the treaty.
The expert group with little expertise
Our attention was drawn to a rather unusual expert group convened to provide recommendations for COP agenda item 4.3 concerning “Protection of the environment and the health of persons.”
The Convention is not a ceiling! #FCTCCOP11
At COP10 it was decided to establish an expert group on ‘forward-looking’ tobacco control measures, to prepare a report to be submitted to COP11. The report will be discussed at the COP11 meeting in Geneva in November, at item 4.1 on the Provisional agenda.
Panama Doubles Down On Its COP10 Failure
There are many ways to embarrass your country on the world stage. You can forget an ally’s name at a press conference. You can mistake one country for another. Or, if you’re Dr. Roa, the incoming President of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Secretariat no less, you can accuse the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of being under the thumb of Big Tobacco
#COP11 documents
Agenda item 4.5 signals that the FCTC Secretariat is doubling down on their opposition to harm reduction for smoking:
146 Conflicts of Interest
Copwatchers need only glance at the lists of accredited observers to COP10 to see that Bloomberg funded organizations dominate. At the same time, not one group representing people who smoke or who consume nicotine is allowed any access to delegations to put their case.
WHO Cares? Apparently Not the World Health Organization
Let’s talk about Saima Wazed who is currently presiding over official events as the WHO’s Regional Director for South-East Asia. That’s impressive. Especially considering that back in her home country of Bangladesh, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has filed not one, but two cases against her for fraud, forgery, and abuse of power, all tied to her campaign for that very WHO role.
Prohibition Wins Prizes!
During a back-slapping event on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly last week, the World Health Organization handed out gongs to countries in honor of World No Tobacco Day 2025.
Dr Tedros Admits That the FCTC Treaty Has a “Systemic Problem”
Or would do so, if he was being consistent.
During a press briefing at WHO headquarters last week, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, came tantalisingly close to identifying a big problem with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control treaty.
The First Rule of WHO Cost-Cutting is You Do Not Talk About WHO Cost-Cutting
The last post at COPWatch reported on how Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, had recently embarked on a regime of cost-cutting. Sadly, he was only cutting the costs that he, himself, had imposed by nearly doubling the number of highly paid Directors since his election in 2017.
Dr Tedros Valiantly Aims to Solve a Problem of His Own Making
Since President Trump’s announcement that the United States is withdrawing all its funding from the World Health Organization, the WHO spin machine has been working overtime to improve its image.
“Setting the record straight” About WHO Misinformation
That would be all very well if the WHO had not been caught by X’s Community Notes system lying the big one on at least sixteen different occasions about vaping.