This week, we were in Geneva for the 11 th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the global treaty seeking to protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, economic and environmental consequences of tobacco. The COP took a number of important decisions to advance tobacco control, including on sustainable financing, tobacco and the environment, liability of the tobacco industry, and forward-looking tobacco control measures.
See McCabe Centre’s WHO FCTC Knowledge Hub on Legal Challenges blog on COP11 here:
https://extranet.who.int/fctcapps/fctcapps/fctc/kh/legalchallenges/news/parties-take-forward-action-sustainable-financing-environment
We attended in our capacity as the Knowledge Hub on Legal Challenges to Implementation of the Convention. We chaired and presented in a joint side event of the WHO FCTC Knowledge Hubs, introducing the support available to parties from the Knowledge Hubs, and also spoke to Parties and observers at the Knowledge Hub booth. We were also pleased to speak in the Union for International Cancer Control’s side event on the WHO Lung Health Resolution and WHO FCTC implementation.
It was fantastic to meet with our alumni and collaborators at COP, with at least 29 alumni of our training programs attending the COP as representatives of Parties, observers, the Convention Secretariat, or WHO, and a further six alumni serving on expert groups in the intersessional period. Congratulations in particular to Dr Jawad Al-Lawati of Oman who was elected as President of the Bureau for the 12 th session of the COP (COP12).
The McCabe Centre’s responsibilities as a Knowledge Hub are supported by grant funding from the Australian government, and we are grateful for the longstanding support by Australia for the work of our Knowledge Hub.
We look forward to working with Parties, the Convention Secretariat, WHO, fellow Knowledge Hubs, and partners to take forward the COP11 outcomes, and to seeing everyone at COP12 in Armenia in 2027!