After the 5-year-battle with tobacco giant, Philip Morris, Australia has prevailed in maintaining its plain packaging laws under a bilateral trade agreement with Hong Kong.
Australia has paved the way for a more effective campaign that promotes a healthy lifestyle after it has won an international battle against Philip Morris over plain cigarette packs. Australia's plain packaging laws was first introduced to the parliament in 2011, which will ban cigarette companies to display their brand logos on cigarette packs. The packs would show graphic images of the bad effects of tobaccos as health warnings.
On the same year, Philip Morris Asia Limited fought the Australian government, sating that the ban on showing their company's trademarks breached foreign investment provisions of the country's 1993 Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with Hong Kong, as The Guardian reports.
However on Friday, according to Philip Morris, the arbitral tribunal declined jurisdiction to settle the case.
"We welcome the unanimous decision by the tribunal agreeing with Australia's position that it has no jurisdiction to hear Philip Morris's claim," said Fiona Nash, Australian Minister for Rural Health, in a post published by The Guardian.
Philip Morris has expressed their dissatisfaction through its senior vice president with a press release addressing the official decision.
"There is nothing in today's outcome that addresses, let alone validates, plain packaging in Australia or anywhere else. It is regrettable that the outcome hinged entirely on a procedural issue that Australia chose to advocate instead of confronting head on the merits of whether plain packaging is legal or even works," argued Marc Firestone, senior vice president and general counsel of Philip Morris International, in a press release published by Reuters.
According to a report by The Guardian dated in 2011, during the birth of the legal issue, Australia has a relatively small tobacco market and takes up to 17 percent of adults.
The implementation of plain packaging on a global scale to Todd Harper, was "the worst nightmare of the tobacco industry." Harper is the chief executive of the Cancer Council Victoria.
