I just saw an article saying that China has just passed some anti-smoking laws, in accordance with their obligations under an anti-smoking treaty sponsored by the WHO (the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control).
While I’m glad to see a new front in the fight against smoking (especially in China, where it’s going to be a seriously bad problem), I was surprised to hear that there was actually a treaty to that effect. Even after visiting their web site I still don’t have a good sense of how this treaty works.
What’s the purpose of having such a treaty? If you want to pass laws against smoking, can’t you just pass laws against smoking? Is there some reason why countries would, in effect, say “WE don’t want to pass laws against smoking, and we know YOU don’t want to do it either, but we will if you will?”
Maybe it’s like joining Weight Watchers? You want to do it, but you need a support group for when your willpower gets low?
Can someone fill in the rationale for this treaty?
There are literally an incredible number of treaties on an incredibly wide range of subjects that fall into the general category of “non-self executing” treaties. Topics range from tobacco, of course, to automobile traffic, to biological diversity, to bribery, to terrorism, racial discrimination, freedom of speech, and so on and so on. These treaties generally lay down a set of unobjectionable principles on matters of concern, and each country is generally obliged to create laws to carry out the intent of the treaty. (In contrast, a self-executing treaty is fully binding upon state parties, as you would imagine an arms control agreement, for example, would be.)
Non-self executing treaties are useful in trying to generate some momentum behind a particular cause, but there lacks any consensus on how exactly to tackle a particular problem. For example, the Tobacco Treaty provides that “each Party should take account of its national health objectives concerning tobacco control and adopt or maintain, as appropriate, measures which may include… . implementing tax policies and, where appropriate, price policies, on tobacco products so as to contribute to the health objectives aimed at reducing tobacco consumption.”
Well, if the UN came along and said that there would be a 25 cent tax on all cigarettes, two things would happen: poor countries would object because 25 cents is a hell of a lot of money; 'Mericans would protest that the One Worlders are taking over. Therefore, it’s easier to leave it up to countries to decide on how they want to tax cigarettes.
As you might guess, it allows countries to agree to fuzzy principles and allows them to interpret phrases in ways that they wish: just like how China, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia signs up to treaties on human rights (and then interprets “human rights” as they wish), or even the current dispute about US policy on torture (based upon another non-self executing treaty that has been in the news lately).
My confusion, though, doesn’t really stem from the fact that the language is fuzzy, nor that it’s non-self executing. What confuses me is that I would expect that treaties, by their nature, involve international issues - and I can’t see how smoking fits into that category.
After all, it’s not like millions of Chinese smoking cigarettes are causing a cloud of smoke to drift across the border, causing second-hand exposure to their neighbors. The smoke isn’t depleting the ozone layer, or accelerating global warming through greenhouse gasses.
It’s really just each country passing laws that affect its own citizens. If a country cares to do this, it could do so without a treaty. If it doesn’t care to do this, it simply doesn’t sign.
What do the signatories gain, or the non-signatories lose?
The World Health Organization is active on a very wide range of public health issues, not strictly the “international” ones. They do work on alcoholism, AIDS, auto accidents, acupuncture, avian influenza, and asthma, to name just some of the A’s. The convention in question is a result of a WHO program. Since countries generally benefit by working with the WHO (in eradicating smallpox, attending conferences on controlling other diseases, etc) there’s really no compelling reason to reject an effort sponsored by the WHO to take a “stand” against some public health risk or another.
In other words, it’s like telling your wife/girlfriend that she looks nice before you go on a date. You don’t have to do it, but it is a gesture of symbolic importance, and not doing so gives others something to dredge up in future conversations/negotiations.