Parties to FCTC Protocol Adopt Decision on Tobacco Seizure Mapping

The Fourth session of the Meeting of the Parties (MOP4) to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products – which took place 2426 November in Geneva, Switzerland – has concluded with a series of decisions to strengthen measures on international cooperation, including a decision on the mapping of tobacco product seizures.

The decision calls on the secretariat of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to undertake, in coordination with the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), an exercise to map existing data on seizures of tobacco products and manufacturing equipment. This will be used to inform decision-making on tackling illicit trade.

The initiator of the decision is Brazil, whose federal tax authority has, in recent years, been collecting information on tobacco product seizures, as well as, more recently, seizures on electronic nicotine delivery systems such as e-cigarettes (which are banned in the country).