Academic articles

This is a non-exhaustive list of scholarly writings on the subjects of tobacco control and human rights.

General Human Rights Articles

What is a Human-Rights Based Approach to Health and does it Matter?

2008- Leslie London

A human rights approach to health is critical to address growing global health inequalities. Three aspects of the nature of health as a right are relevant to shaping a human rights approach to health: 1) the indivisibility of civil and political rights, and socio-economic rights; 2) active agency by those vulnerable to human rights violations; and 3) the powerful normative role of human rights in establishing accountability for protections and freedoms.

Defining Tobacco Control as an Important Human Right and Development Goal

2011- Alwis Daynard

The purpose of this paper is to advance tobacco control within a powerful rights and development framework in Turkey. The integration of a human rights based approach to the control of tobacco is a powerful tool in the protection of the rights of women and children.

Human rights and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: Mutually Reinforcing Systems

2011- Oscar Cabrera and Lawrence Gostin

This article explores the connection between human rights and tobacco control, and in particular, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), addresses tobacco industry counter-arguments, and illustrates how international human rights law and human rights bodies can provide avenues for international monitoring and enforceability.

Human Rights-Based Approach to Tobacco Control

2012- Dresler, Lando, Schneider, Sehga

An article for the Tobacco Control Journal that explains the link between fundamental human rights and the right to tobacco control.

Breathing Life into the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: Smoking Cessation and the Right to Health

2013- Benjamin Mason Meier

The harms of smoking are global in scope, and states must act multilaterally to repel this global threat to public health. Embodying this cooperative spirit, the member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) have banded together to challenge tobacco through international law. While successful in its execution, this international effort to control smoking neglects cessation interventions, thereby offering little salvation to those whose health is at greatest risk-those already addicted to tobacco. Addressing these forgotten victims requires a new paradigm for tobacco control: the human right to health.

Human Rights and Ethical Considerations for a Tobacco-Free Generation

2013- Yvette van der Eijk and Gerard Porter

This paper examines some key legal and ethical issues raised by this proposal, critically assessing how an obligation to protect human rights might limit or support a state’s ability to phase out tobacco.

Tobacco Marketing: A Violation of Human Rights in Latin America

2015- Kelsey Romeo-Stuppy

With tobacco use on the rise, Latin America is failing to live up to its obligations under human rights treaties.

Is There a Human Right to Tobacco Control?

2019- Andreas T. Schmidt

This chapter defends a legal human right to tobacco control. Building on existing work, the chapter argues that the legal case for such a right is strong. Existing international human rights treaties, chiefly the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, recognize a human right to health alongside several other rights that speak for covering tobacco control under human rights law.

Articles Focused on Children's Rights

A Missing Voice: The Human Rights of Children to a Tobacco-Free Environment

2016- Brigit Toebes, Marie Elske Gispen, Jasper V Been, Aziz Sheikh

Encourages Parties to link the human rights framework to the global tobacco epidemic; invites the Convention Secretariat to collaborate with existing United Nations mechanisms and processes working on issues of business and human rights, chapeau includes references to human rights, right to health

Dossier: Tobacco's Big Child Labour Problem

2019- Mark Rowe

Despite cigarette consumption dropping globally, their manufacture is still one of the world’s most profitable industries. For many farmers, tobacco cultivation is a vital source of income. One big problem – much of the labour is carried out by children.

CRC State Reports ``Tobacco Control``

2019- Marie Elske Gispen, Jacquelyn Veraldi, Meaghan Beyer, Nicole Rusli, Brigit Toebes

This data set has been developed as part of a three-year study into children’s rights and tobacco control carried out at the Global Health Law Groningen Research Centre of the University of Groningen and is financed by the Dutch Cancer Society. Methods include systematic searches of all state reports submitted to the Committee on the Rights of the Child up until March 2018. Search terms used include *tobacco, *smoking.

CRC General Comments ``Tobacco Control``

2019- Marie Elske Gispen, Nicole Rusli

This data set has been developed as part of a three-year study into children’s rights and tobacco control carried out at the Global Health Law Groningen Research Centre of the University of Groningen and is financed by the Dutch Cancer Society. Methods include systematic searches of all General Comments of the Committee on the Rights of the Child up until April 2019. Search terms used include *tobacco, *smoking/smoke, *health, *well-being, *lifestyle/life.