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Tobacco Control Litigation: Broader Impacts on Health Rights Adjudication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Oscar A. Cabrera  and
Juan Carballo
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Extract

There is perhaps no area of law that so effectively protects human health and thereby advances the right to the highest attainable standard of health, as tobacco control. Globally, tobacco is responsible for 1 in 10 adult deaths, and is on track to kill 10 million people per year, mostly in developing countries, representing a US$200 billion drain on the global economy. Yet experience in recent decades has shown that a range of tobacco control measures, such as comprehensive bans on smoking in public places, tobacco taxes, and limits on tobacco advertising, can greatly reduce smoking prevalence. These measures have slowly curtailed the epidemic, despite strong opposition from various sectors led by the tobacco industry. It is fitting that tobacco control is the focus of a recent, widely ratified global treaty (the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) and of increasing national litigation, often directly linked to countries’ human rights commitments.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , Spring 2013 , pp. 147 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2013

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