Jan 13, 2009
Guidelines for FCTC Article 11 have been updated and now provide additional details and guidance for countries to implement health warnings, emission and constituent labels, and the removal of misleading information from cigarette packages.
New guidelines were passed for the tobacco packaging and labeling regulations under Article 11 of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The Elaborated Guidelines provide additional detail and guidance to countries on the implementation of health warnings on cigarette packages, labeling of tobacco constituents and emissions, and the removal of misleading information from the packages. Among other things, the new guidelines recommend that countries should adopt pictorial health warnings on packages that are as large as possible, remove and prohibit tar and nicotine numbers from packages, and should consider “plain packaging” regulations that would prohibit the use of colour and other brand imagery from packages. The Elaborated Guidelines can be downloaded here.