Background

British American Tobacco (BAT) released an industry-first human rights report in 2020, which extolled the efforts and objectives of the tobacco industry giant for promoting human rights. How BAT came to brand itself as a human rights champion, being a leader in an industry long accused of enabling human rights violations from leaf-to-stub including profiting from a product which inherently violates the right to health, is unknown. Exploring BAT's evolution through reviewing its materials and Tobacco Industry Documents could shed light on their development and what it means in the tobacco control and human rights context.

Methodology

We reviewed publicly available materials from BAT as well as conducted archival research in the Tobacco Industry Documents digital archives at University of California San Francisco. We focused on how and when BAT used terms such as 'human rights', 'right to health', 'sustainable development goal' and 'harm reduction' as well as 'Framework Convention on Tobacco Control'.

Results

We reviewed 48 BAT publications and 45 documents from the Tobacco Industry Documents archives. These materials demonstrate both BAT's increasing utilisation of human rights language as well as BAT's reuse of the same language, concepts and general rhetoric. BAT has not engaged significantly or meaningfully on the human right to health.

Conclusion

BAT's increasing use of human rights rhetoric does not appear to reflect a shift in the company's human rights positions, particularly with respect to the right to health of consumers and BAT's lack of impactful measures to eliminate the harms of its tobacco products.

Background

Increasingly, international health bodies frame public health measures, including tobacco control, in the context of human rights (HR). It is unclear how prevalent is the connection between human rights and tobacco control within global health governance. This paper describes the inclusion of HR in tobacco control governance, and the inclusion of tobacco control in HR treaty oversight. We depict the current reach of HR's normative influence in framing the tobacco epidemic in global, regional, and country-specific contexts.

Methods

We reviewed documents (agenda, reports) from 2010 to 2019 from the World Health Assembly (WHA); the WHO Western Pacific Regional Committee Meetings (RCM); the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) Conferences of the Parties (COP); and documents provided by Pacific Island Countries party to, or by committees overseeing, HR treaties. We purposively selected the Western Pacific Region, and Pacific Island Countries specifically, to represent countries of varying populations, capacities, and governance.

Results

Tobacco control and HR are infrequently mentioned together in the WHAs, and primarily in only one COP. Tobacco control is mentioned in 47 HR treaty committee documents for Pacific Island Countries, mostly under the Convention of the Rights of the Child recognizing or calling for ratification of the WHO FCTC. HR and tobacco control are connected in WHO Western Pacific RCM, particularly through their two most-recent action plans adopted by respective RCMs.

Discussion

Tobacco control as a HR concern is gaining traction within HR treaty bodies, at least with respect to children's health in the Western Pacific Region.

Conclusion

Globally, HR is just emerging as an influence in global health governance for tobacco discussions. Within the Western Pacific Region however tobacco control is seen by some authorities as a HR issue. Similarly, to HR experts, tobacco control is becoming important to how Pacific Island Countries fulfill their treaty obligations, suggesting tobacco control advocates might explore these mechanisms to further influence the development of strong tobacco control measures to implement the WHO FCTC.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) has accomplished much in advancing tobacco control. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were critical to the development of the Convention, who aided in mobilising stakeholders and advocated for core provisions of the treaty. NGOs and intergovernmental organisation are well recognised within the Convention and deemed essential to its continued implementation and evolution. Further, the treaty has been understood to be multidisciplinary in its aspiration to improve public health, and the role of both health sector and non-health sector stakeholders is an important component for describing the reach and potential for the Convention. In 15 years, however, non-state actors' participation in the WHO FCTC Conference of the Parties (COP) - where Parties to the treaty engage in discussions that shape the treaty's implementation and evolution - has been underrepresented in terms of sectoral diversity. We reviewed COP documents and assessed non-state actors' participation in the COPs since the Convention's entry into force. We conclude that greater inclusion in COPs from health and non-health sector NGOs, intergovernmental organisations and UN Special Agencies would strengthen the global reach and full implementation of the WHO FCTC.