Today, November 4, just before 11am Geneva time, the death clock will reach a staggering 40 million tobacco-related deaths since the start of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) negotiations in 1999.

This is a stark reminder that critical steps must be taken at the upcoming third Conference of the Parties (COP) to effectively implement the Convention. Most urgently, Parties must adopt strong and effective guidelines for implementation of Articles 5.3, 11 and 13.

These articles focus, respectively, on halting industry interference in public health policies; implementing effective packaging and labelling requirements; and banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

Parties must also provide sufficient budget to enable the critical work of the Secretariat and the Conference of the Parties to be done and ensure the availability of financial resources and mechanisms of assistance to developing country Parties and Parties with economies in transition in order to make the effective implementation of the Convention possible by all Parties.

In preparation for COP-3, FCA’s policy documents and other materials are available on the FCA website's home page or its policy papers section.

More information

Read about the Death Clock in the news in English / French / Japanese.