Honduras, Ukraine Challenge Australian Laws On Tobacco Marketing At WTO

“Ukraine and Honduras are reviving a dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) challenging Australian laws that impose uniform drab green packaging and large graphic health warnings for cigarettes, diplomats said on Friday,” Reuters reports. “Tobacco firms say the Australian rules, which outlaw logos, infringe their trademarks,” the news agency writes, adding, “The WTO complainants say the rules create illegal obstacles to world trade.” The WHO “sees Australia’s campaign, which has so far defeated the tobacco industry’s legal challenges, as heralding a ‘brave new world of tobacco control,'” Reuters states, noting six million people die of tobacco-related causes annually, according to the WHO (Miles, 9/13). “The first country to challenge the law was Ukraine, in March 2012,” Agence France-Presse/Fox News reports, noting, “The process was put on ice eight months later at Ukraine’s request, before being reactivated last month, but the dispute settlement panel has not yet been formed” (9/13).

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