Voon, Tania; Mitchell, Andrew D. --- "Implications of WTO Law for Plain Packaging of Tobacco Products" [2012] ELECD 811; in Voon, Tania; Mitchell, D. Andrew; Liberman, Jonathan; Ayres, Glyn (eds), "Public Health and Plain Packaging of Cigarettes" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Public Health and Plain Packaging of Cigarettes

Editor(s): Voon, Tania; Mitchell, D. Andrew; Liberman, Jonathan; Ayres, Glyn

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857939425

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Implications of WTO Law for Plain Packaging of Tobacco Products

Author(s): Voon, Tania; Mitchell, Andrew D.

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

6. Implications of WTO law for plain
packaging of tobacco products*
Tania Voon and Andrew D. Mitchell

I. INTRODUCTION

The fight against Australia's scheme for the plain packaging of cigarettes1
seems to be gearing up not only in the domestic context2 but also in the
international sphere. Forewarnings of likely responses within the World
Trade Organization (`WTO') were already found in complaints brought
against measures introduced by Canada and the United States restrict-
ing the use of certain additives and flavourings in cigarettes and related
products.3 The former has been repeatedly challenged in comments made
by numerous Members within the Committee on Technical Barriers to
Trade,4 while the latter is the subject of a formal WTO dispute settlement

* This research was generously supported by the University of Melbourne

pursuant to the Vice Chancellor's Staff Engagement Project Grants. We are grate-
ful to Timothy Lau for helpful research assistance, to David Heaton for valuable
comments on an earlier draft, and to the able staff of the Law Research Service of
Melbourne Law School. Thanks also to the organisers of and participants in the
International Law Association Asia-Pacific Regional Conference (Taipei, 31 May
2011), at which our preliminary findings were presented. All opinions expressed
here and any errors are ours. Parts of this chapter were first published in Tania
Voon and Andrew Mitchell, `Face Off: Assessing WTO Challenges to Australia's
Scheme for Plain Tobacco Packaging' (2011) 22(3) Public Law Review.
1 Tobacco Plain Packaging Bill ...