American opt-out torpedoes anti-smoking treaty

The United States was accused yesterday of seeking to undermine yet another international treaty after it sought special exemptions from a World Health Organisation initiative to curtail tobacco use.

The Bush administration claimed it intended to sign the treaty, which was negotiated by 171 countries, but said in a letter to the WHO that it wanted a clause allowing governments to opt out of any provision they found objectionable.

That prompted anti-tobacco lobbyists and some Democrats to accuse the Bush administration of attempting to torpedo the treaty as a favour to Philip Morris and the other American tobacco firms who contribute lavishly to Republican party campaign funds.

It has also angered international negotiators who see the move as another instance of the administration's go-it-alone, "America First" approach to international affairs.

"I think it is impossible to reach a consensus, and this could easily be the end of the entire tobacco convention," a Belgian negotiator on the WHO treaty, Luk Joossens, told The Washington Post.

Allowing piecemeal exemptions ­ or "reservations" as they are technically known ­ would undermine the effectiveness of the document, he said. "If you open one article, it will encourage other nations to open articles they don't like ... there is a lot of anger in many countries about this American action."

Anger at the US has been fuelled by the fact that a draft of the treaty was approved at a WHO meeting in March. Since then, only the United States and the Dominican Republic have raised objections.

The sticking point in Washington appears to be the draft treaty's restrictions on cigarette advertising. These would have a significant impact on US tobacco firms which have been all but eviscerated in their home market and rely on expanding foreign markets. The treaty also calls for all countries to include large health warnings on cigarette packaging.

Several critics have accused the Bush administration of double standards on cigarettes, publicly identifying them as a major health risk at home while quietly working to ease restriction on US tobacco companies overseas.

The Democratic leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives wrote to the President, George Bush, last week accusing him of seeking to weaken the WHO treaty and to place "inappropriate" pressure on other countries to support the US position.

This would not the first time the Bush administration pulled out of an international agreement. Since coming to power two years ago, it has abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Kyoto protocol on global warming and plans for an international criminal court.

On tobacco, the Bush administration has already lobbied to ease tariffs and increase government export assistance to tobacco companies.

Congressman Henry Waxman of California noted in a recent letter to Mr Bush that Philip Morris was the No 1 corporate contributor to the Republican party as well as being the country's leading tobacco exporter.

"At a minimum, this creates a terrible appearance of special favours for the tobacco industry," he said. "Lower tobacco tariffs and increased imports of tobacco products are associated with ... disease, and death in developing countries. This grim legacy is not worthy of the United States."

Treaties spurned

Kyoto climate-change protocol

In March 2001, the Bush administration withdrew from the 1997 Kyoto treaty that committed industrialised countries to cut emissions of gases believed responsible for warming the planet. All major industrialised nations have signed except the US ­ the world's biggest polluter.

International Criminal Court

The first permanent international tribunal to try cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide opened in The Hague in March ­ 89 countries signed up to it in 1998, but it was spurned by the US. It has signed agreements with 24 countries guaranteeing immunity from prosecution for its citizens in those countries.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

Sets out nuclear disarmament as a global goal. The "big five" ­ US, Russia, China, Britain and France ­ backed the treaty's creation at the United Nations in 1996. Bill Clinton was the first to sign it, and 159 countries followed suit. But since Clinton left office, the US has refused to ratify it.

Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty

In December 2001, Mr Bush served formal notice to the Russians that the US was pulling out of the bilateral treaty, signed by presidents Nixon and Brezhnev at the height of the Cold War. Scrapping the ABM Treaty cleared the way for the US to begin developing its own missile defence system.