As a part of the ENSP-ECTC Series of Webinars, the topic of tobacco and human rights will be addressed during the session on 14 December (13:00 – 14:30 CET), under the title “Introducing human rights aspect to tobacco control – on the way to tobacco endgame”.

While the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) was an important victory for public health, its implementation is uneven and some articles have been particularly neglected. Access to smoking and nicotine dependency treatment, covered under Article 14 of the FCTC, has been one of the most neglected obligations.

The right to health is recognized in numerous global and regional human rights instruments including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR) .

A human rights approach to ending the tobacco epidemic is unique and could help overcome the challenges in FCTC implementation, as it frames the right to be free from smoking addiction as a human right and implores or requires governments to advance human development by implementing measures that decrease smoking. Until recently a human rights approach to advance tobacco control has been given little attention, but in the past year we have seen remarkable progress in areas that are particularly relevant to human rights and provide unique opportunities to further integrate tobacco control in the national, regional and global human rights agendas and to help accelerate the implementation of tobacco control measures at the national level.

Register for the webinar here.

Click here to see the preliminary agenda.