By Ben Coates
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2003 — With the first global treaty to regulate tobacco set to be debated next week, newly released internal company records reveal a key tobacco industry player's sophisticated campaign against the proposed accord. British American Tobacco, the world's second largest tobacco company with 2002 revenue of about $40 billion, considered a two-pronged strategy: projecting a public image of corporate social responsibility while simultaneously working to prevent the enactment of a tough worldwide treaty, the documents show.
The several hundred pages of documents, which came from the Minnesota Tobacco Document Depository, a collection of company records established as a result of the state of Minnesota's lawsuit against tobacco companies, were sent to the depository in February and April 2003 and are dated between 1999 and 2001.
During this period, BAT was developing and implementing a strategy to confront a treaty sponsored by the World Health Organization. Work on the proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control began four years ago. The World Health Assembly, which oversees WHO, is set to consider the final draft during its meeting beginning May 19.
The convention—or treaty— aims to reduce smoking worldwide. It requires countries to ban all tobacco advertising (where constitutionally possible), demand large health advisory warnings that cover at least 30 percent of principal display areas, and prohibit deceptive product descriptions, possibly including such terms as "light" or "low tar." The convention, which is the first negotiated under the auspices of the WHO, also sets forth a series of recommendations, including measures to limit second-hand smoke exposure, raise tobacco taxes, eliminate tobacco smuggling and prohibit underage smoking. If adopted by the World Health Assembly, the treaty would enter into force once 40 nations have ratified it.
The United States has indicated that it will not sign the treaty unless a clause is added allowing it to take 'reservations' (which would allow individual countries to opt out of clauses they found objectionable), angering critics who claim that such an action would benefit big tobacco companies.
The Center's review of BAT emails, memos, meeting notes, and policy proposals indicates that the company envisioned a serious threat from the proposed treaty. "The WHO's proposed Framework Convention on Tobacco Control represents an unprecedented challenge to the tobacco industry's freedom to continue doing business," concluded a document BAT proposing a broad strategy to confront the WHO.
Others within the company saw adoption of a convention as inevitable, but didn't think it was necessarily a bad thing, as long as it did not include specific enforcement measures harmful to the industry. "We are not necessarily against a convention," wrote Simon Millson, international government affairs manager and head of BAT's WHO task force, "but the potential form and content of the proposed convention as is being proposed by the WHO could contain some serious threats and concerns for the long term viability of the industry.We must therefore ensure that the convention and associated protocols are broad based."
Some strategies alluded to in the documents include:
- A long range plan to rehabilitate the image of the company and the tobacco industry as a whole. Consulting firm KPMG discussed a proposal with senior staff to help the company reinvent itself as a more "socially responsible" enterprise by drafting a code of conduct, working to assuage the doubts of key officials and NGOs and making a conspicuous "commitment to social accountability." Shabanji Opukah, head of international development issues for the company , found the plan promising: "Time comes when organizations have to be shocked out of their comfort zones and shells and some of this unfortunately may come from externally driven rather than internally inspired and value driven sources." For BAT, Opukah continued, the treaty "presents the best opportunity to take forward the big agenda on CORPORATE REPUTATION Management."
- A proposal to create an independent, international organization to regulate the tobacco industry, in the hope that taking a proactive stance could preempt WHO efforts for a global treaty and "increase public confidence in the regulatory process, and thereby decrease political support for anti-tobacco pressure groups."
While these proposals for image reinvention were being circulated, more direct lobbying against WHO's initiative was planned. Among the aspects proposed for this campaign:
- "Propose a solution to fast track 'sensible regulation' at a national level with the tobacco industry's support that is consistent with our own corporate objectives." This would help to "stiffen the growing resistance to adopting a legally binding global convention."
- Provide funding, along with other large tobacco companies, for a global information campaign conducted by the International Tobacco Growers' Association, a UK-based organization representing tobacco growers from 22 countries. An email from Dr. Tom Watson of Hallmark PR, a firm funded by BAT and other tobacco manufacturers that directed ITGA's marketing efforts, suggested one aspect of the group's value to the tobacco industry: the growers' association could serve as "the credible (i.e. non-manufacturer) front end for the battle over [the tobacco free initiative] and the Tobacco Control Convention." In other words, ITGA initiatives, supported with tobacco company money but untarred by the industry's reputation, could more effectively lobby against the WHO's convention.
- Argue that AIDS and other diseases pose greater health threats than tobacco, thereby undermining WHO's credibility. "Then idea is to use the forum to challenge and ridicule the WHO convention," wrote Shabanji Opukah regarding an upcoming pan-African AIDS conference.
- Undertake a sophisticated and targeted global lobbying effort aimed at convincing government officials of selected countries to oppose the WHO initiative. Through its global network of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs (CORA) personnel, BAT planned to target key countries for more intensive lobbying. As one document noted of BAT's activities to date: "Materials containing the key arguments they need to challenge the legal, economic and political foundations of the [tobacco free initiative] have been circulated to all CORA managers. As a result, there has been some success at a government level. Brazil, China, Germany, Argentina and Zimbabwe have all agreed to make submissions to the drafting process." Lists of key countries and summaries of WHO activity were distributed to company lobbyists.
The documents do not make clear if all of these strategies were in fact implemented. However, expenditure reports and billing sheets from outside law and consulting firms illustrate that at minimum hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on the overall effort.
Ross Hammond, consultant to the international program for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, an organization supporting WHO's proposed treaty, charged that the documents "show a concerted industry effort to undermine the Framework Convention, which [the tobacco companies] rightly see as a threat to their ability to do business, particularly in developing countries."
Jeannie Cameron, International Regulatory Affairs Manager for BAT, agreed that the FCTC "affects the future of our industry," but insists that the company has not engaged in any underhanded activity. "We have provided our views openly and transparently," she says, adding that "we accept that tobacco should be regulated but are in favor of sensible regulation, and feel that FCTC is a one-size-fits-all approach and needs to be looked at more nationally. What may work in one country may not work in another country," she said.
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