Table 1.

National and international tobacco litigation

	United Kingdom	European Union	India	Uruguay	Australia
Outcome	Victory	Victory	Victory	Victory	Victory*
Date	May, 2016	May, 2016	May, 2016	July, 2016	2017
Venue	UK High Court	European Court of Justice	Supreme Court of India	ICSID International Trade Arbitration	WTO
Challenged control measure	Plain packaging	Graphic warning labels; banning tobacco flavours; regulations for electronic cigarettes	Warning label size	Warning label size and single brand presentation	Plain packaging
Key points	The FCTC has a high status in EU law; guidelines to the FCTC have particularly high evidential value; the FCTC and the WTO's TRIPS Agreement can be read together without any risk of them colliding or being inconsistent; both prevalence and consumption data supported the effectiveness of plain packaging measures; there is nothing in the ordinary principles of international law that would require a court to hold that TRIPS takes precedence over the FCTC	The EU directive seeks to meet the obligations of the European Union under the FCTC; EU member states might maintain or introduce additional requirements regarding packaging of tobacco products that go beyond the requirements of the EU directive; it is lawful for EU legislature, taking account of FCTC guidelines, to impose a prohibition on all characterising flavours; the EU acted in accordance with COP decision that urged Parties to consider banning or restricting advertising, promotion, and sponsorship of electronic cigarettes	India's warning labels are among the world's most stringent, covering 85% of the front and back of cigarette packs; India's Government will proceed with implementation of the regulations and opposes any further delay in their implementation	Nowhere does the TRIPS Agreement provide for a right to use a trademark; in the Tribunal's view, adoption of the challenged measures by Uruguay was a valid exercise of its police powers to protect public health; the challenged measures were adopted in fulfilment of Uruguay's national and international legal obligations for protection of public health	Ukraine withdrew from the dispute settlement proceedings; the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Indonesia, and Honduras challenged Australia's plain packaging measures; the dispute settlement panel advised the parties that it now expects to issue its final report in July, 2017; the interim report validated Australia's plain packaging as a legitimate public health measure

ICSID=International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. WTO=World Trade Organization. FCTC=Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. TRIPS=Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. COP=Conference of the Parties.

^*As per interim report.