On June 9, the appellate body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) issued a final ruling affirming that Australia’s law requiring plain packaging for tobacco products is consistent with WTO agreements. This rejects the 2018 lawsuit brought Cuba, Honduras, Indonesia, and the Dominican Republic claiming their trademarks were being infringed upon the due to the brand imagery obliteration of plain packaging and that these rules constituted an illegal barrier to trade.
WTO said if found no errors in the earlier panel's conclusions and that it rejected the complainants' request for Australia to change its packaging rules. The decision means plain packaging measures are allowed to stand in Australia, although WTO recognized several shortcomings in the analysis of the first WTO panel which examined this dispute.
Although British American Tobacco (BAT) was not a part of the lawsuit, a spokesperson stated that, “Naturally, we are disappointed with the ultimate findings of the report. We remain firm in our belief that plain packaging is an ineffective and disproportionate measure that doesn’t reduce smoking levels. Our position that plain packaging is bad policy, continues to be supported by the evidence coming out of Australia that shows the measure has not achieved its objective of reducing smoking rates.
“This report is not an endorsement on the effectiveness of plain packaging. In fact, the appellate body actually dismissed the panel’s finding that plain packaging reduced the consumption of tobacco products.”