Scrap investment agreements instead of plain packaging say AMA, Trade activists
The Australian Medical Association has today said that if Phillip Morris is successful in its legal challenge against plain packaging for cigarettes, the international investment agreements that the challenge rests on should be scrapped. Phillip Morris has said that it will challenge the government’s push to enforce plain packaging for cigarettes using a trade deal that Australia did with Hong Kong back in the 1990s. The company has a subsidiary in Hong Kong, and this may allow it to use Australia’s investment deal with that country in mounting legal arguments against the packaging laws. Trade activists say that Phillip Morris’s action shows how dangerous international investment deals can be, they say the deals can hamstring governments as they try to deal with important public health problems.