Australian court approves grisly cigarette packaging, rules against tobacco ... - Toronto Star

Australia new cigarette packs

HANDOUT/REUTERS Illustrations of some of the proposed models for Australian cigarettes packs.

SYDNEYâ€"One of the world’s toughest cigarette labelling laws is set to take effect in Australia in December, after the country’s highest court ruled Wednesday against multinational tobacco companies that had sought to block the new legislation.

Graphic images of mouth ulcers, cancerous lungs and gangrenous limbs will dominate the front of all cigarette packages sold in the country, and brand logos will be banned, after a landmark ruling by the High Court of Australia determined that the new laws were consistent with the constitution and did not violate the rights of “big tobacco.”

In a suit with potential global ramifications that was closely watched by industry lobbyists and health advocates in Australia and abroad, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco and Philip Morris Australia had argued that the new ban on brand logos would infringe on their intellectual property rights, an argument that was rejected by the court.

Legal experts said the decision Wednesday could set a precedent for other countries seeking to introduce harsher labelling requirements for tobacco products as a means to curtail smoking and its related health problems among their populations.

Benn D. McGrady, a lawyer at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, said the specific implications of the decision would depend to a great extent on the detailed reasons for the decision, which the court has not yet issued.

Australian officials welcomed the ruling, which they hope will combine with some of the highest taxes in the world on tobacco to further drive down smoking rates.

“This is a victory for all those families who have lost someone to a tobacco related illness,” Nicola Roxon, the attorney general, and Tanya Plibersek, the health minister, said in a joint statement. “No longer when a smoker pulls out a packet of cigarettes will that packet be a mobile billboard.”

The suit by the multinational tobacco firms was the last major Australian legal hurdle to implementing the new rules, which require health warnings to cover 75 per cent of the front of cigarette packages and 90 per cent of the back starting Dec. 1.

Brand logos and colourful designs will be banned, with only a small space remaining where the brand name and variant of the cigarette can be printed. Packages will be required to be a uniform shade of olive green.