COP 10 - Day 4 Proceedings

The fourth day of COP 10 kicked off with the fifth and sixth plenary meetings, but the Decisions section on the COP10 website has no documents from this week. Parties continued to work together to adopt the draft decision on Articles 9 and 10 to move on to addressing all the remaining agenda items that require substantive discussions such as human rights, the environment, and the specific guidelines on Article 13.

Committee A’s deliberations over agenda item 6.1, concerning Articles 9 & 10, are still not resolved: (Item 6.1 (cont) Implementation of Articles 9 and 10 of the WHO FCTC (regulation of contents and disclosure of tobacco products).

Also, two agenda items have now been transferred from Committee A to Committee B – an indication that the discussions over item 6.1 are taking much longer than anticipated. Committee B continued to advance at a steady pace to get through the numerous agenda items, even with the added workload of agenda items transferred from Committee A.

AMRO, AFRO, and SEARO regions delivered regional interventions in plenary this morning around maximising transparency.

Key Takeaways:

• The Orchid Award was handed to Singapore- For constructively, and in line with FCTC rules, helping Parties move forward on Art. 9 & 10.
• The Dirty Ashtray Award was handed to the Dominican Republic, a non-party, for ‘misusing the Plenary session to promote the tobacco industry.’

The Public Health team of the Metropolitan Health Region carried out an operation in four hotels in the town after a complaint about the distribution of pamphlets and t-shirts focused on the consumption of tobacco and its derivatives.” This was unacceptable “because it affects the public health of the population. “They are t-shirts worn by vaping consumer advocates and flyers produced by consumer associations to be handed out to delegates at COP explaining salient points of harm reduction and politely asking them to consider consumer concerns.

On the latest stream of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, scientists and consumer advocates explained the hardships they need to overcome to include scientific evidence in the debate on tobacco control.