{"id":19553,"date":"2020-01-30T16:03:24","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T15:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/actualites\/le-kenya-fait-front-a-lindustrie-du-tabac-pour-proteger-la-sante-publique\/"},"modified":"2020-01-30T16:03:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T15:03:24","slug":"le-kenya-fait-front-a-lindustrie-du-tabac-pour-proteger-la-sante-publique","status":"publish","type":"actualites","link":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/actualites\/le-kenya-fait-front-a-lindustrie-du-tabac-pour-proteger-la-sante-publique\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya confronts tobacco industry to protect public health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Kenya&#039;s Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya against the country&#039;s tobacco control regulations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Tobacco companies resort to legal action to counter health policies. Drawing on significant financial resources, they initiate legal proceedings against laws or regulations, also with the aim of dissuading neighboring countries from adopting such provisions. These appeals have failed. Courts in both Kenya and Uganda have rejected all of the tobacco companies&#039; claims. The judges reiterated the preeminence of public health protection over the industry&#039;s particular interests, which justify restricting their activities. These decisions are also important for other countries facing similar threats of legal action from tobacco manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The public authorities supported by the civil society organisations behind the measures contested by the manufacturers find themselves strengthened by these court decisions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The appeal was filed in 2015 by BAT, which challenged the constitutionality of the Kenya Tobacco Control Regulations 2014. BAT lost in the High Court and then the Court of Appeal, and its appeal to the Supreme Court has now been dismissed. This decision allows the Kenyan government to finally implement regulations designed to protect health, including:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>illustrated health warnings on all tobacco packaging<\/li>\n<li>enhanced protections through smoking bans in public and collective places<\/li>\n<li>provisions to protect tobacco control policies from tobacco industry interference, and<\/li>\n<li>the creation of a tobacco control fund, to which BAT will be required to pay an annual fee to help cover health costs related to tobacco use.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">BAT is also implicated in legal proceedings brought against it. The company is currently under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office in the United Kingdom and Kenya for alleged bribery of government officials in several African countries. In addition, another legal action is being considered in London by tobacco farming families in Malawi regarding abusive labor practices and child labor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cnct.fr\/actualites\/indice-de-interference-de-lindustrie-du-tabac-2019\/\">The Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index<\/a>, published in October 2019, found that Kenya&#039;s legislation ranked fourth out of 33 countries for its ability to protect health policies from tobacco company interference. Countries are more successful in reducing tobacco use when they protect policies from tobacco industry influence.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/\">\u00a9Generation Without Tobacco<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #e8e8e8;\"><a style=\"color: #e8e8e8;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnct.fr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">| \u00a9National Committee Against Smoking |<\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kenya&#039;s Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya against the country&#039;s tobacco control regulations.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":19554,"template":"","tags":[],"thematique":[502,499],"class_list":["post-19553","actualites","type-actualites","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","thematique-justice","thematique-lobby"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites\/19553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/actualites"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites\/19553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19553"},{"taxonomy":"thematique","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematique?post=19553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}