Making a Human Right to Tobacco Control: Expert Networks, Framing and the Right to Health

TY - JOUR

T1 - Making a Human Right to Tobacco Control

T2 - Expert Networks, Framing and the Right to Health

AU - Reubi, David

PY - 2012/10/22

Y1 - 2012/10/22

N2 - This article addresses the proliferation of human rights in international public health over the last 20 years by examining recent attempts at framing the global smoking epidemic as a human rights problem. Rather than advocating in favour or against human rights-based approaches, the article purports to understand how and why such approaches are being articulated and disseminated. First, it argues that the representation of the global smoking epidemic as a human rights issue has been the product of a small, international network of public health experts and lawyers: the human rights and tobacco control collective or community (HTC). The article describes in particular the HTC's membership, its style of thinking and its efforts to articulate and disseminate human rights-based approaches to tobacco control. Second, the article argues that the aim of the HTC when framing tobacco control as a human rights issue was not to generate public attention for and the political will to tackle the global smoking epidemic, as the literature on framing and human rights presupposes. Instead, as the article shows, the HTC framed tobacco control as a human rights problem to tap into the powerful, judicial monitoring and enforceability mechanisms that make up international human rights.

AB - This article addresses the proliferation of human rights in international public health over the last 20 years by examining recent attempts at framing the global smoking epidemic as a human rights problem. Rather than advocating in favour or against human rights-based approaches, the article purports to understand how and why such approaches are being articulated and disseminated. First, it argues that the representation of the global smoking epidemic as a human rights issue has been the product of a small, international network of public health experts and lawyers: the human rights and tobacco control collective or community (HTC). The article describes in particular the HTC's membership, its style of thinking and its efforts to articulate and disseminate human rights-based approaches to tobacco control. Second, the article argues that the aim of the HTC when framing tobacco control as a human rights issue was not to generate public attention for and the political will to tackle the global smoking epidemic, as the literature on framing and human rights presupposes. Instead, as the article shows, the HTC framed tobacco control as a human rights problem to tap into the powerful, judicial monitoring and enforceability mechanisms that make up international human rights.

KW - human rights

KW - global health

KW - tobacco control

KW - expert networks

KW - framing

KW - right to health

U2 - 10.1080/17441692.2012.733948

DO - 10.1080/17441692.2012.733948

M3 - Article

SN - 1744-1692

VL - 7

SP - S176-S190

JO - Global Public Health

JF - Global Public Health

IS - S2

ER -