World fights nicotine addiction but Switzerland continues to drag feet

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) has called on governments to regulate all tobacco products, stating that the "risk reduction" arguments promoted by manufacturers are "fallacious". Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Geneva is home to the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO), yet Switzerland has not ratified the global convention on tobacco control and remains one of the countries where the tobacco industry has most influence.

The 11th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco ControlExternal link (FCTC) ended in Geneva on November 22 after six days of deliberations. The parties to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products gathered the following week.

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) commits its parties to end the “global tobacco epidemic”. The treaty provides a legal framework and a package of tobacco control measures. These include pictorial health warnings on cigarette packets, smoke-free laws and increased taxes on tobacco products.

The Convention today has 183 parties. Switzerland signed it in June 2004 but has not ratified it.

The FCTC is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025. It was the first treaty negotiated under the auspices of the WHO and is one of the most widely embraced United Nations treaties in history.

“Key decisions were reached” during this COP11, said the acting head of the WHO FCTC Secretariat, Andrew Black, at the closing press conference. “These decisions will strengthen the implementation of the treaty, […] contribute towards saving millions of lives in the years to come and protecting the planet from the environmental harms of tobacco.” 

They include measures targeting the environmental pollution caused by waste from tobacco products and their derivatives, and a ban on tobacco products and e-cigarettes within all United Nations premises. The importance of funding for national tobacco control programmes was also reaffirmed.

COP under pressure

Two items on the agenda had to be carried over to COP12, scheduled to take place in Armenia in 2027, as no consensus was reached within the allotted timeframe. They concern the obligation for countries to implement measures to tackle nicotine addiction and to protect them from interference by the tobacco industry and its “misleading claims about harm reduction”, explained Kate Lannan, senior legal adviser for the FCTC Secretariat.

She was referring here to the arguments put forward by industry giants that heated tobacco products, for example, are less harmful to health than cigarettes. “The tobacco industry […] provides information from its own commercial perspective, which is completely incompatible with the human right to health and with the convention,” said Reina Roa, president of the COP.

For the FCTC, “the incredible interference of the tobacco industry” remains one of the main hurdles to the implementation of truly effective tobacco control on a global scale, Black said. He noted that the industry had shown particular interest in this COP and that attempts to influence the negotiations had been reported.

“We can see that many delegations were probably briefed [by the industry],” a member of an EU national delegation told the news website EuractivExternal link. “They are coming up with the same arguments, sometimes word for word.”

From the very start of COP11, several small countries relayed the “risk reduction” arguments promoted by tobacco companies, the article said.

An influential industry worldwide

The industry’s efforts to derail global tobacco control are not dwindling. Far from it. They are becoming increasingly aggressive, as found by the 2025 Global Tobacco Industry Interference IndexExternal link.

Published in mid-November, this report found that tobacco companies have actively attempted to interfere in policy development and implementation by approaching decision-makers across a wide range of countries with promises of investment and employment, paid-for trips to visit their facilities and corporate social responsibility efforts.

Many governments cave in to this pressure. The industry’s clout has grown in 46 of the 100 countries assessed by the index. Just over 30 have made progress, and only 18 have adopted new measures or strengthened the implementation of existing measures to protect their public health policies from industry interference.

Switzerland drags its feet

Switzerland has one of the worst records in this regard. It has the second-highest score, placing it second to last on the index. Only the Dominican Republic fares worse. And the Swiss score has worsened, going from 92/100 in 2021 to 95 in 2023 and 96 in 2025.

This poor performance can be explained by the fact that, despite hosting the WHO FCTC headquarters, Switzerland is one of the few countries that is not a party to the convention. It is therefore not bound by any international commitments in this respect.

Although Switzerland signed the FCTC in 2004, it has not ratified it, as it has not managed to bring its laws into line with the treaty’s requirements. Health professionals across the country are calling for ratificationExternal link, while the business community is opposedExternal link.

The tobacco industry is a heavyweight in the Swiss economy. The Alpine country has long been home to the headquarters of three of the world’s leading tobacco companies – Philip Morris International (PMI), British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International – as well as other players, such as Oettinger Davidoff and Villiger Sons.

These giants bring in significant tax revenues as well as jobs. Their facilities, in particular PMI’s state-of-the-art research and development centre in Neuchâtel, are regularly the object of expenses-paid visits by policymakers from other countries, according to the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index report.

Strong political connections

Thanks to its economic contribution, the tobacco industry is also very well connected within Swiss political circles. The notorious permeability between private interests and politicians in the country is the main reason for Switzerland’s poor ranking, as we discussed in this article in 2022.

“A remarkably high number of direct links exist between the parliament and the tobacco lobby,” says LobbywatchExternal link, an organisation that monitors interest groups in Switzerland and which contributed to the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index.

According to its research, around 30 members of parliament have direct or indirect ties to the sector. These include elected officials who are on committees dealing with tobacco regulation, whose deliberations are kept secret. Several parliamentarians have, completely legally, given industry representatives their access badges to restricted areas of the federal parliament.

Under the Swiss system, parliamentarians may be remunerated by different private groups and organisations in parallel to their official duties. They must declare these links of interest but are not required to disclose the amounts of any associated income.

This is different from the rules on lobbying in the European Parliament. Here, too, the tobacco industry carries out active, and legal, lobbying. However, interest representatives must sign up to the Transparency registerExternal link and declare, for example, the subject matter of their lobbying and the resources involved, as well as a list of their meetings. Payments to members of the European Parliament are not considered as lobbying, but as corruption.

Weak tobacco control

In Switzerland, there is nothing to stop the tobacco industry from financing candidates or parties or from taking part in policymaking. Thus, in the 2023 federal elections, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party and the centre-right Radical-Liberal Party received money from PMI.

According to Lobbywatch, “the hand of the tobacco lobby in lawmaking was evident in the implementation of the ‘Children without Tobacco’ popular initiative”. This text, which was adopted in 2022, mandated a ban on tobacco advertising aimed at children and young people and was, at the time, one of the first significant regulatory measures to be adopted in years. Some key provisions were then “watered down”, Lobbywatch says.

All this is a sign of “the weakness of Swiss tobacco control legislation”, according to the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index. According to the latest Tobacco Control Scale, from 2021, Switzerland ranks second to last in Europe with regard to the implementation of tobacco control policies, after Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Edited by Virginie Mangin; adapted from French by Julia Bassam/ts