News and updates

As the case of a health blogger who fraudulently profited from a fabricated account of beating cancer concludes, there is hope that new legislation in Victoria will put an end to dodgy cancer cure claims.

On 17 February 2017, the Court of Appeal of Kenya at Nairobi upheld the High Court of Kenya’s dismissal of a legal challenge brought by British American Tobacco (BAT) to the Tobacco Control Regulations (2014), made under the Tobacco Control Act (2007).

This Saturday, World Cancer Day, the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer turns 5. It’s been an amazing 5 years for us.

On 8 July 2016, the arbitral tribunal constituted to hear Philip Morris’ challenge to Uruguay’s tobacco packaging and labelling measures under a 1988 bilateral investment treaty between Switzerland and Uruguay handed down its Award, dismissing all of Philip Morris’ claims against Uruguay’s large graphic health warnings and its ‘single presentation requirement’, a requirement that tobacco manufacturers produce no more than one variant of a single brand family of cigarettes. We've written a paper explaining the key aspects of the Philip Morris v Uruguay award for countries looking to move ahead with WHO FCTC implementation - learn more in this blog.

Next week, high-level representatives of governments will assemble at UN Headquarters in New York for the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the World Drug Problem. In this guest post for ehospice's series on access to medications and UNGASS, Jonathan Liberman explains why the 2016 UNGASS could galvanise efforts to provide pain relief, palliative care and protection of dignity to millions of people around the world.

Jonathan Liberman, Director of the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, outlines the research findings but says the fight against tobacco companies is far from over - for Australia still but also for other countries, particularly those who are less resourced but vulnerable to the social and health costs of tobacco in coming decades.

The relationship between health and trade is an increasingly prominent item on the global noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) agenda. Although adopted in the context of access to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria medicines, the Doha Declaration covers public health concerns more broadly. The Doha Declaration also applies to NCD prevention measures concerning intellectual property such as certain tobacco control laws.