The ASH Team is in Geneva for the Eleventh Conference of the Parties (COP11) of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) from November 17 – 22, 2025. We will share updates and progress here for our community to stay engaged and informed throughout COP11.
November 19, 2025 – The third day of COP11 had mixed outcomes. Agenda items included making UN campuses nicotine and aerosol free, Article 18 on the Environment, and Article 19 on Liability as well as Article 2.1 Forward-Looking Measures (FLMs) – all ASH priorities.
Article 19 on Liability was a new issue for the agenda – but the discussion was eerily similar to yesterday’s committee debate on FLMs.
ASH has taken a leading role in promoting the use of litigation – including criminal litigation – against the tobacco industry as a tool to advance public health and ensure accountability for tobacco industry’s historical and ongoing misconduct. COP is considering an expert report that presents a wide range of policy options for countries to consider relating to civil liability, criminal liability, and administrative liability. This discussion is critical, because liability, in the FCTC’s words, is “an important part of tobacco control,” and yet Article 19 is one of the least-known and least-implemented provisions of the FCTC.
So why the déja vu? As with FLMs, the COP is debating a decision that would invite them to consider which, if any, of the report’s recommendations might be appropriate for them to adopt. Like FLMs, a liability decision would not amend the treaty so no country will be mandated to do anything. And as with the discussion of FLMs, numerous countries seem to have misinterpreted those elements.
Fortunately, as with FLMs, many parties expressed their support.
Similarly, Article 21 of the treaty already outlines reporting requirements and therefore adopting the decision would not impose new obligations.
The Article 18 agenda item saw debate as well. While cooperation is encouraged between the FCTC and other UN mechanisms to address the environmental impacts of tobacco, the FCTC COP remains the key place to address tobacco. As Arnold Kreilhuber, Director of the Europe Office of the UN Environment Programme reminded Parties in his opening plenary speech, a healthy planet and healthy people are two sides of the same coin.
As predicted in yesterday’s blog, debates went on well into the night.
