Tobacco control and the World Trade Organization: mapping member states’ positions after the framework convention on tobacco control
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To note the frequency of discussions and disputes about tobacco control measures at the World Trade Organization (WTO) before and after the coming into force of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). To review trends or patterns in the positions taken by members of the WTO with respect to tobacco control measures. To discuss possible explanations for these observed trends/patterns. METHODS: We gathered data on tobacco-related disputes in the WTO since its establishment in 1995 and its forerunner, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), prior-FCTC and post-FCTC. We also looked at debates on tobacco control measures within the WTO more broadly. To this end, we classified and coded the positions of WTO member states during discussions on tobacco control and the FCTC, from 1995 until 2013, within the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council. RESULTS: There is a growing interest within the WTO for tobacco-related issues and opposition to tobacco control measures is moving away from high-income countries towards low(er) income countries. CONCLUSIONS: The growing prominence of tobacco issues in the WTO can be attributed at least in part to the fact that during the past decade tobacco firms have been marginalised from the domestic policy-making process in many countries, which has forced them to look for other ways and forums to influence decision-making. Furthermore, the finding that almost all recent opposition within the WTO to stronger tobacco regulations came from developing countries is consistent with a relative shift of transnational tobacco companies' lobbying efforts from developed to developing countries.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.022 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.022 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".