News and updates

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. Read more >: Fight for plain truth far from over

Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) bear the heaviest burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) globally, but there are promising signs that the region is also beginning to develop specific, multi-sectoral responses. Read more >: Promise of Progress in the Pacific

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. Read more >: The Doha Declaration: for prevention as well as cure

Adoption of the Political Declaration on Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases in 2011 represented landmark acknowledgement of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as a major challenge for development in the 21st Century. Nearly three years later, outcomes of a recent United Nations review highlight the critical need to match ongoing global political commitment with strengthened capacity, including legal capacity, in accelerating a ‘whole-of-government’ and ‘whole-of-society’ response. Read more >: Building legal capacity into an accelerated global NCD response

In a guest blog for Edward Elgar, Jonathan Liberman explains that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) carries great legal and political power for global health and development in the 21st century. Jonathan’s blog draws on his chapter The Power of the WHO FCTC: Understanding its Legal Status and Weight in the new book The Global Tobacco Epidemic and the Law, edited by Melbourne Law School Professors Andrew Mitchell and Tania Voon. Read more >: The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control at 10: its power for global health and development in the 21st century

Consumers International and the World Obesity Federation have released a set of recommendations towards a Global Convention to protect and promote healthy diets. In an invited blog for Consumers International, Jonathan Liberman responds to the proposal, drawing lessons from the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Read more >: A global convention on healthy diets? Some lessons from the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Last week, McCabe Centre Director Jonathan Liberman and Professors Mark Davison and Andrew Mitchell appeared before the Health Committee of the New Zealand Parliament, which is examining a Bill that would require tobacco products in New Zealand to be sold in plain packaging. They set out why they believe the Bill would not breach New Zealand’s obligations under WTO or international investment law. In this blog, they address some of the claims made by the tobacco industry in its submissions to the Committee. Read more >: Responding to the tobacco industry’s claims that plain packaging breaches international trade and investment law

As a participant in the McCabe Centre Intensive Legal Training Programme during February and March, I learned about important and pressing issues related to tobacco control, alcohol control, obesity, treatment and support for cancer, access to medicines, global action on NCDs, and international trade and investment. Read more >: Eating the Elephant in the Room

What are the bases for developing and implementing laws for obesity prevention? Which levels of government are responsible? What is the role for public health evidence? And how can public health advocates respond to the efforts of opponents of legal approaches who simultaneously overplay gaps in evidence, the limits of legal authority, and technical barriers, with a view to delaying or stalling the use of law? Read more >: Ad bans, labelling and taxes: exploring the intersection of law and public health in global efforts to prevent obesity

Simon Lacey, a Jakarta-based international trade-law practitioner, writes in the Jakarta Globe that he advised Indonesia to challenge Australia's plain packaging legislation in the WTO because it would be a good opportunity to build Indonesia's WTO dispute settlement experience - particularly because the tobacco industry would be footing the bill. We comment on Lacey's perspective and on his judgment that Australia's plain packaging is ‘almost certainly ... an act of regulatory over-reach' and ‘a silly political calculation'. Read more >: WTO dispute settlement as a training exercise?

Nearly two years after the passage of Australia's plain packaging legislation, and ten months after it came fully into effect, the international legal challenges continue. Slowly. And the tobacco industry, which is directly pursuing one of the challenges and providing support to the others, is telling governments considering stronger tobacco control measures to wait until the challenges are resolved. Read more >: Waiting out the legal challenges to plain packaging - playing into the tobacco industry's hands?

I had the great privilege of being in Bangkok, Thailand, last week to talk with public health and legal colleagues about Thailand's defence of lawsuits brought against it by the multinational tobacco industry. Read more >: From Australia to Thailand - defending tobacco packaging laws against multinational tobacco industry lawsuits

Should human cancer disposing genes be considered patentable inventions? What exactly is an ‘invention'? What impact would this have on patient healthcare and cancer research? How does Australia's patent law system operate? These were some of the questions I had to consider when analysing the Federal Court of Australia's historic ruling on the practice of ‘gene patenting' in Cancer Voices Australia v Myriad Genetics Inc during my internship with the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer, undertaken earlier this year in partnership with the Melbourne Law School. Read more >: Cancer Voices Australia v Myriad Genetics Inc: Reflections on a Patent Controversy

While many employers are supportive when an employee is affected by cancer, retaining, returning to, or finding new employment can be difficult for some people who have or have had cancer.  Read more >: Making the law work better for people affected by cancer: employment

Across Australia, as geographical isolation increases, cancer care is less accessible. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the further from a metropolitan centre a person with cancer lives, the more likely they are to die within five years of diagnosis. For some cancers, those who live remotely are up to 300% more likely to die within five years of diagnosis. In the second blog of our series, we outline some of the challenges for people who need to travel long distances for cancer treatment. Read more >: Making the law work better for people affected by cancer: support for travel for treatment