Abstract
Since 2010, the World Health Organization has advocated the use of health information labelling to inform consumers of the health risks related to alcohol consumption. The alcohol industry oscillates between opposing and supporting alcohol labelling. This article reviews the minutes of the meetings of the World Trade Organization’s Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) (from 2010 to the present day) to garner unique insights into the specific features of alcohol health information labelling that are opposed by the alcohol industry. The article also identifies and analyses the trade law arguments that are made against these contested labelling measures. These arguments primarily come from the WTO’s TBT Agreement. Our view is that the TBT Agreement will provide little comfort to alcohol exporting members who seek to rely on it to challenge alcohol health labelling measures, such as those discussed in the TBT Committee.
Highlights
In 2010, the World Health Organization (‘WHO’) published the Global Alcohol Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol (‘Global Alcohol Strategy’), with one of its recommendations being the ‘labelling [of] alcoholic beverages to indicate... the harm related to alcohol’.1 These harms are varied and potentially serious, including acute and chronic health problems for the drinker and others.[2]
Our view is that the TBT Agreement will provide little comfort to alcohol exporting members who seek to rely on it to challenge alcohol health labelling measures, such as those discussed in the TBT Committee
III CURRENT TRADE ISSUES IN ALCOHOL LABELLING REGULATION. In this Part, we review the alcohol labelling matters that have come before the WTO TBT Committee as ‘specific trade concerns’ between 2010, when the Global Alcohol Strategy was launched, and 2017, and identify the features of these measures that have been most contested by WTO members
Summary
In 2010, the World Health Organization (‘WHO’) published the Global Alcohol Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol (‘Global Alcohol Strategy’), with one of its recommendations being the ‘labelling [of] alcoholic beverages to indicate... the harm related to alcohol’.1 These harms are varied and potentially serious, including acute and chronic health problems for the drinker and others.[2]. Why would be the alcohol industry and major exporting countries be so concerned about health information labelling as a policy intervention to prevent alcohol-related harm? Increases, and bans on smoking in public places.[44] For the alcohol industry, resisting the introduction of government-mandated labelling (or any one of the population level interventions) is likely important to avoid the potential for alcohol regulation to follow a similar path to tobacco, with the addition of each policy seemingly paving the way for further and more radical interventions in the future. Calls for higher taxation and more restrictions on alcohol marketing have been common since the 1970s and are found in the Global Alcohol Strategy,[45] but calls for plain packaging of alcohol have emerged recently, with the UK government’s public health agency putting it on the agenda for consideration.[46]
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