The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced that it plans to adopt a new international treaty to combat the illegal tobacco trade by 2010.

Under the proposed guidelines for the new global treaty, tobacco companies could be made responsible for clamping down on cigarette smuggling, with stiff financial penalties for failure.
At the end of a week of negotiations in Geneva involving about 130 countries, delegates said there was broad agreement to require companies to track and trace tobacco products from manufacture to point of sale and fine them if contraband is seized. The proposals are modeled on an existing agreement between 26 of the 27 European Union countries (excluding the UK) and two tobacco giants, Philip Morris International and Japan Tobacco International.
Further negotiations are expected in October and in 2009 before a draft text is presented in 2010 to the 152 countries which have ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
The Framework Convention Alliance, a coalition of some 300 anti-tobacco groups, says the global illicit trade may have amounted to nearly 11 per cent of total sales, or 600 billion cigarettes, in 2006. The lobby group Corporate Accountability International (CAI) estimates that illicit tobacco trade costs governments between USD 40 – 50 billion every year. (pi)