Final Essay - Smoking and Human Rights

             Australia has been a major success story in being able to enact and enforce certain public health measures in order for their citizens to have the opportunity to be educated and live a life of leisure unaffected by the dangers of smoking cigarettes. What the Australian government and people were able to do was place large graphic pictures of the effects of smoking on their cartons replacing the Brand's trademark. These laws referred to as plain packaging were successful in bringing smoking rates to all record lows. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) This success however did not come easy, the case made against them in enacting these laws was by replacing the Brands trademark, although the Brand name was preserved, they were infringing upon the companies intellectual property. Phillip Morris International (PMI) is the company that owns the cigarettes brands began expansive legal cases against the Australian government. The cases, reaching Australian's highest court, ultimately ruled against the tobacco company and also made them pay for Australian legal fees. This setback however has not stopped them from going after weak and poorer countries.
             Uruguay for example banned smoking in enclosed spaces in 2006, required tobacco companies place warnings on over half of the cartons surface area in 2008, and raised the price of packs through taxes in 2010 yet they are still being punished by the tobacco companies with extremely expensive legal cases each of the previous 5 years. They have received help from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan-American health organization which is great but it is help that could easily be placed in other ventures if the country could just be protected from legal trouble for trying to educate and protect their citizens from unnecessary risks. For reference of available resources Australia as a country has an annual Gross Domestic Product of $1.