This month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) held two virtual meetings relating to its mission to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products, called Conference of the Parties (COP9) —yes, another COP! — and Meeting of the Parties (MOP2).
But those titles are misleading: key stakeholders were shut out of the conversation.
As is now typical of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), key parties were excluded from these vital conversations. The media was shut out, as was law enforcement. Countless organizations and individuals with potential insight into the issue, such as scientists, were excluded because of alleged distant connections to tobacco interests. Perhaps most importantly of all, consumers had no voice at either COP9 or MOP2.
Instead, those conferences saw public health bureaucrats and governments officials meet for talks behind closed doors to concoct plans for the continuing growth of the nanny state in the form of endless new restrictions on tobacco products. A cabal of statists gathered in a room to agree with each other about the need to impose their will on the non-consenting public. It was an autocratic echo chamber.
This is clearly dangerous. By allowing elites to set the rules free of scrutiny, officials can produce oppressive, harmful international laws which might otherwise have been impossible. When a group of tobacco farmers peacefully protested against COP7, held in Delhi in 2016, they were rounded up onto buses and carted away out of sight and earshot of the conference. The FCTC is wilfully blind to the real-world consequences of its diktats.
Special To Financial Post – 2021-11-25.
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