Following the development discussion in the last volume on the 'politics of health', Jennifer Prah Ruger argues that the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) represents a shift in global health policy that recognizes the importance of addressing health needs on multiple fronts and integrating public policies into a comprehensive set of health improvement strategies. She argues that th...

BACKGROUND Guatemala, as a party to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), is required to regulate cigarette packaging and labeling and eliminate illicit tobacco trade. Current packaging and labeling characteristics (of legal and illegal cigarettes) and their compliance with the FCTC is unknown. METHODS We sought to analyze package and label characteristics of illegal and legal c...

May 2003 marked a critical achievement in efforts to stem the global tobacco epidemic, as the member states of the World Health Organization unanimously endorsed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). However, the adoption of the FCTC signifies only the end of the beginning of effective global action to control tobacco. Over the next several years the utility of the FCTC process an...

Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2003, 81 (8) “In this one bowl, there is rice from a thousand households.” The saying of Zen poet Ryokan (1758–1831) well describes the contribution of many parties towards the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: WHO, other UN agencies, Member States, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academia, the media, and even the tobacco industry. The ...

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a World Health Organization sponsored global tobacco control treaty, constitutes the first major international tool with the potential to significantly reduce the global pandemic of tobacco-produced disease and death. After providing background on the prevalence of cigarette smoking and smoking attributable mortality, both at present and proje...

BACKGROUND The present work concerns the adoption of domestic tobacco control legislation in Ecuador after ratification of the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). METHODS Analysis of legislation, and data collection via interviews with key actors involved in the adoption and implementation of domestic legislation passed purportedly to implement the ...

INTRODUCTION Thailand ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on November 8, 2004. The WHO FCTC requires all parties to inform all persons of the health consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. Each party has agreed to develop, implement and evaluate effective tobacco control programs to measure progress in reaching t...

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) stands as a landmark approach to addressing a global health problem. It represents the first time the World Health Organization (WHO) used its constitutional right to negotiate an international law and the first time the Member States of WHO agreed to a collective response to chronic, non-communicable diseases. This paper draws lessons from the...

This study aimed to develop indicators for evaluating the implementation of The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Iran. We used the "grounded theory" framework. Totally, 265 policy-makers, stakeholders, and community members were recruited by purposeful sampling in 2008. After analyzing the gathered data, 251 indicators, including 82 indicators as "applied indicators", were deri...

This article explores the connection between human rights and tobacco control, and in particular, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). We address rights-based arguments used by the tobacco industry to argue against tobacco regulation. We demonstrate the weakness of these arguments, and that tobacco control and human rights are, in fact, not in conflict, but are mutually reinforci...