{"id":25634,"date":"2025-07-22T12:01:58","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=25634"},"modified":"2025-07-22T12:02:02","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T12:02:02","slug":"who-fails-to-read-its-own-treaty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/who-fails-to-read-its-own-treaty\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO fails to read its own treaty"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The World Health Organisation is urging its members to classify \u201charm reduction\u201d as a tobacco industry narrative, despite the concept being classified as a tobacco control strategy in its own treaty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A draft agenda for the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco control, seen by Clearing the Air and available here, call for a discussion on protecting \u201cmeasures to prevent and reduce tobacco consumption, nicotine addiction and exposure to tobacco smoke\u2026in light of the tobacco industry\u2019s narrative on \u201charm reduction\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Framework convention itself – a two decade old international treaty on tobacco control – defines harm reduction as a \u201ctobacco control\u201d strategy. This means the convention Secretariat – which wrote the agenda and is supposed to be the “guardian” of that treaty – appears to be actively working to undermine its key provisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In other words, the WHO is now trying to undermine what its own legal structure says is a key part of its reason for existing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

All this comes despite growing numbers of WHO Member States embracing harm reduction policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the Secretariat\u2019s framing, many countries at the last WHO conference on tobacco control (COP 10) made clear they wanted to see more <\/em>harm reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, New Zealand called for \u201cevidence-based harm reduction measures,\u201d including regulated vaping products. The Philippines: highlighted a \u201cbalanced approach\u201d and the need for a regulatory framework. And Caribbean island nation Saint Kitts and Nevis wanted a Working Group on tobacco harm reduction, highlighting its value in other public health domains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 11th Convention of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (COP 11) will take place from 17-24 November. The meeting will be held at the WHO\u2019s Geneva HQ after Panama\u2019s disastrous hosting of last year\u2019s COP 10. The meeting was delayed for months after social unrest in the country, and the organisation of the meeting itself was riddled with corruption allegations<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this year\u2019s meeting has already been plagued with scandal. Saima Wazed, who is currently the WHO\u2019s Regional Director for South-East Asia is wanted for fraud, forgery, and abuse of power, all tied to her campaign for her WHO role. <\/p>\n

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The World Health Organisation is urging its members to classify \u201charm reduction\u201d as a tobacco industry narrative, despite the concept being classified as a tobacco control strategy in its own treaty. A draft agenda for the Conference of the Parties to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990003,"featured_media":25635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[342,186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-25634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-new-zealand","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25641,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25634\/revisions\/25641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25634"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=25634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}