Korea - South: WHO Conference on Tobacco Control Closes after Six-day Run

Source from:  Yonhap News Agency (kr)  11/22/2012

A six-day international conference on tobacco control ended Saturday after adopting a new international treaty aimed at rooting out illegal trade of tobacco products.

About 140 participants adopted the "Protocol to Eliminate Lllicit Trade in Tobacco Products," which commits countries to setting up a global tracking and tracing system to reduce illicit trade of tobacco products.

The conference, officially called the fifth session of the parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), kicked off Monday in Seoul.

The convention is an international treaty aimed at curbing tobacco-related deaths worldwide, the first global agreement negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization. South Korea signed the convention in July 2003.

"The elimination of all forms of illicit trade in tobacco products, including smuggling and illegal manufacturing, is an essential component of tobacco control," said Ricardo Varela, president of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO FCTC.

After the conference, Haik Nikogosian, head of the secretariat of the WHO FCTC, said that the Seoul conference added up new details to the regulation of the contents of tobacco products and of tobacco product disclosures, which was adopted by the parties to the WHO FCTC in Nov. 2010. Enditem