Dominican Republic Requests WTO Panel Over Australia’s Plain Packaging Law

NACS Daily News

The Republic asserts that the regulations will undermine its tobacco industry.

GENEVA – Late last week, the Dominican Republic requested the establishment of a panel under the dispute settlement procedures of the World Trade Organization (WTO) challenging Australia’s plain packaging measures for tobacco products.

Starting Dec. 1, Australia will mandate that all tobacco products be sold in plain packaging. Packaging will be a standardized drab brown color, with the brand and variant name in a standardized font and place, banning all logos or other design features. This move will prevent tobacco products from using their well-known trademarks and geographical indications, the republic stated in a press release.

These unprecedented measures will undermine the Dominican Republic’s tobacco industry, in particular its premium cigar sector. By prescribing standardized plain packaging, the tobacco market will be driven towards commoditization, with declining prices, and increasing — rather than falling — consumption and illicit trade.

Plain packaging will undermine those health objectives, failing to curb consumption, while destroying the market for Dominican producers, the republic asserted. Australia’s plain packaging measures do not, therefore, withstand scrutiny under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).

“Tobacco has been an intrinsic part of the Dominican culture and heritage for centuries, and the tobacco sector is vital for our development. Our producers have made enormous investments — including in intellectual property — to turn the Dominican Republic from a simple tobacco leaf exporter into one of the world’s leading producers of premium cigars and the world’s largest exporter of cigars,” said HE Luis Manuel Piantini, ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the WTO, in a press release.

“This is a significant achievement for a small developing economy. Plain packaging will wipe away these achievements — our premium cigars will be dressed as discount products, which people will continue to smoke; prices will ultimately fall, affecting the livelihood of more than a hundred thousand Dominican workers and their families. The TRIPS and TBT agreements protect our commercial and development achievements,” said Piantini.

In June, the Ukraine and Honduras diplomats filed trade disputes with the World Trade Organizations protesting the Australian plain packaging law.