Despite its aim to reduce global consumption of cigarettes, the impact of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on tobacco use has been heavily contested. Indeed, while smoking rates have fallen in most high income countries, cigarette consumption has actually increased in low-and-middle-income countries since the FCTC was enacted.

Many believe the WHO’s prohibitionist attitude towards safer nicotine products contradicts the FCTC’s identification of harm reduction as the third pillar of tobacco control. And despite their valuable perspectives, consumers with experience of switching from smoking to safer alternatives are barred from FCTC COP meetings.



To assess the effectiveness of the Convention as it reaches 20 years old, and to highlight areas that need drastic change, we’ve gathered a panel of experts who have all been intimately involved with its workings, for a #GFN25 session titled “Reflections on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control at 20”. Hosting this session is Jeannie Cameron, leading expert on the Convention. Present during the negotiating meetings at
the creation of the FCTC, and having attended every COP summit, Jeannie has seen first hand the policy and ideological shifts that have occurred over time.

Jeannie will be joined by two former WHO Directors: Professor Tikki Pangestu, former Director of Research Policy & Cooperation at the WHO from 1999 to 2012, and Dr. Derek Yach, former Executive Director for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health at the WHO and a key architect of the FCTC treaty. The distinguished panel is completed by Professor David Khayat, an internationally renowned oncologist who served as the first president of the French Federation of Medical Oncologists, and Asa Saligupta, a prominent consumer advocate who has campaigned for access to safer products despite hostility to tobacco harm reduction from the authorities in Thailand. It is set to be a fascinating discussion.