This Commentary forms a response to Nikogosian’s and Kickbusch’s forward-looking perspective about the legal strength of international health instruments. Building on their arguments, in this commentary we consider what we can learn from the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for the adoption of new legal international health instruments.

more than 50% of the global population already lives in urban settlements which are projected to absorb almost all the global population growth to 2050, amounting to some additional three billion people. over the next decades the increase in rural population in many developing countries will be overshadowed by population flows to cities. rural populations globally are expected to peak at a leve...