Philip Morris v Tobacco Control

Speaker: Professor Tania Voon (Melbourne Law School)
Chair: Dr Martins Paparinskis (UCL Laws)

About the lecture

In two recently concluded disputes, Philip Morris entities brought unsuccessful investment treaty claims against tobacco control measures. The claims against Australia’s standardised tobacco packaging laws were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds in late 2015. The claims against certain measures of Uruguay including graphic health warnings were rejected on the merits in July 2016. The speaker reflects on the implications of these decisions for public health, international investment law, and public international law.

About the speaker

Tania Voon is Professor at Melbourne Law School and was Associate Dean (Research) from 2012-2014. She is a former Legal Officer of the WTO Appellate Body Secretariat and has previously practised law with King & Wood Mallesons and the Australian Government Solicitor and taught law at Georgetown University, the University of Western Ontario, the University of British Columbia, and several Australian universities. Tania undertook her LLM at Harvard Law School and her PhD at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Cultural Products and the World Trade Organization (Cambridge University Press, 2007), editor of Trade Liberalisation and International Co-operation: A Legal Analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (Edward Elgar, 2013), and series editor of the International Economic Law Series of Oxford University Press. Tania is a member of the Roster of Panelists for the Energy Charter Treaty and of the Indicative List of Governmental and Non-Governmental Panelists for resolving WTO disputes. She has provided expert advice and training to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the WTO, the World Health Organization, Telstra, and the McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer. In 2014 she was Senior Emile Noël Fellow at the Jean Monnet Center, NYU Law. In 2016 she is Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge and was Scholar in Residence at WilmerHale’s arbitration group in London.