Trans-Pacific Agreement threatens tobacco & alcohol control policies

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Public release date: 12-Mar-2012

Contact: O'Reilly

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Wiley-Blackwell

Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement threatens public health

An editorial to be published by the scientific journal Addiction has

been made available online, revealing that negotiations are underway

behind closed doors for a far-reaching new trade and investment

agreement that could tie the hands of governments’ future alcohol and

tobacco control policies in perpetuity.

According to editorial author Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law at the

University of Auckland, the nine-country Trans-Pacific Partnership

Agreement (TPPA) currently being negotiated between Australia, Brunei,

Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States and

Vietnam, with Canada, Japan and Mexico in the wings, aims to set a ‘gold

standard’ for removing barriers to the global alcohol and tobacco

industries and give them greater leverage over domestic policy

decisions. The goal is to produce a state-of-the-art agreement that

other states in the Asia Pacific Economic ation (APEC) grouping

will adopt, culminating in a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific.

The draft TPPA text is secret, aside from chapters and background

documents that have been leaked. Despite the secrecy, Kelsey says it is

clear that the cumulative effect of its substantive rules and procedural

requirements would shift the balance of policy-making power firmly in

favour of transnational corporate interests. By ensuring that domestic

alcohol and tobacco policy and regulation pose minimal impediments to

global strategies, and that industry has a role in writing them, the

draft TPPA threatens progressive public health policies. At its core,

the TPPA threatens sovereignty and democratic governance. The problem is

with the agreement itself.

TPPA negotiations are not going forward unopposed. The American Medical

Association has already called for the exclusion of measures affecting

the supply, distribution, sale, advertising, promotion or investment in

tobacco products and alcoholic beverages from trade agreements. Tobacco

control advocates are well advanced in their campaign, bringing pressure

at the national level and at the stakeholder programmes held on the

margins of the formal TPPA negotiating rounds.

In Australia, The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) is

working with other health, medical and fair trade organisations to lobby

the Australian government to ensure that it refuses investor-state

dispute settlement provisions applying to Australia and that it insists

that public health and access to medicines are not compromised in the

developing country parties to the agreement. The PHAA has also organised

discussions between public health experts and Australia's trade

negotiators, written to politicians, issued press releases, and

organised several public events to raise awareness in the public health

community about the risks to health associated with the TPPA, including

during the negotiations in Melbourne.

But Kelsey asserts that there is danger in focusing on issue silos.

Beyond alcohol and tobacco are other public health concerns, such as

Pharmaceutical Benefits Schemes, and beyond public health is a multitude

of other negative impacts, from mining and sustainable livelihoods to

indigenous rights and culture. These trade agreements represent a major

public health challenge which requires action from people interested in

reducing the harm from addiction and substance use around the world.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/w-tpa030912.php