It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this meeting. This is the first time in its 50-year existence that the World Health Organization is exercising its constitutional mandate to negotiate a legally binding treaty. Geneva has made major contributions to international thinking on disarmament, human rights, environment and trade issues. Several treaties that have changed the course of history have been negotiated under the umbrella of the United Nations system. A great success story has been the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone layer.

It is about time we add health to that illustrious list. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, when ready, will give the world a new instrument with which to address and steer the global health debate. I believe I am not overstating the case when I say that this moment is our tryst with history.

At last year’s World Health Assembly when I was elected Director-General of WHO, I said tobacco is a killer. Nothing that I have heard or seen in the past fifteen months has made me change my mind. On the contrary. As I look at the science and the evidence, resource allocation and health priorities, I am appalled at the neglect to which global and national tobacco control has been subjected. Just last week I visited the International Agency for Cancer Research in Lyon together with the Executive Board of WHO. We there got yet another daunting illustration of the increasing disease burden which tobacco is increasingly loading on to the health systems of this world. A totally unnecessary burden - a burden which all countries, but especially the developing countries, cannot afford to carry.

In this very building, five months ago, Health Ministers and officials from WHO’s member states had the foresight and courage to speak up strongly against tobacco. The World Health Assembly voted unanimously to start work on the Framework Convention. Tobacco exporting and importing countries, surveying the death and destruction caused by tobacco on their people, their economies and their environment, called for accelerated work to begin on the Framework Convention. Their message was this: take action so that the global spread of tobacco is circumscribed. Take action so that the number of tobacco deaths can be brought down. So our mandate is clear.

Our mandate is clear because the stories of death and destruction reaching us from all corners of the world leave no doubt about what needs to be done. That message says tobacco kills. Our mandate is clear because the science that underpins our work is indisputable.

Tobacco now kills four million people a year. In about thirty years, that figure will rise to 10 million. Ten million deaths - that is more than the total deaths from malaria, maternal and major childhood diseases and tuberculosis combined. Globally between 82,000 and 99,000 young people start smoking every day, and by young, we mean as young as 12 years old. In China, if present smoking patterns continue, about a third of the 300 million Chinese males now aged 0-29 will eventually be killed by tobacco. That is one in three. Countries like Canada and Sweden, which long had bucked the tobacco epidemic now see it rearing its head again. No peoples and no countries are safe from the tobacco menace.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we have to control malaria, we have to understand the vector. It is not different with tobacco. We all know that tobacco is injurious to health, but how many of us know the extent to which the tobacco industry has gone to optimize nicotine so as to deliver just the right amount to the consumer for addiction to occur? Tobacco is a powerfully addictive substance. There is mounting evidence to suggest that the tobacco industry has subverted science, public health and political processes to sell a product that addicts its consumers before killing them. Available data shows that most of today’s smokers started in their teens. And when we speak about adolescents getting addicted, then we no longer speak about freedom of choice. Then we - as representatives of governments and the international community - have to take our full responsibility and talk about children’s rights. Children have the right to be protected from addiction.

Tobacco is a global challenge - that is the message of today’s event. WHO is the only international multilateral organization that can bring together the necessary technical and public health expertise but also gather the political backing necessary to control the global spread of tobacco. The Framework Convention process will craft a response that will build consensus and strengthen the hands of parliaments and governments to protect the health of their peoples and especially of the young.

WHO’s message is that of public health. But tobacco control touches on broader sectors of society. The bottom line is that tobacco is not only bad for health, it is also bad for the economy at large. And methods from beyond the health sector have to be applied if we are to succeed. Such as economic and financial measures: A recent World Bank report ‘’Curbing the Epidemic - Governments and the Economics of Tobacco Control’’ argues succinctly that an informed mix of policy options ranging from tax increases to non-price measures can help governments bring down tobacco deaths. On an average, a 10 percent price rise on a pack of cigarettes can be expected to reduce demand by 4 percent in high-income countries and by about 8 percent in low and middle income countries. The young are particularly sensitive to price. The report makes very clear that there are simply no economic arguments in favour of tobacco.

We need a multi-sectoral approach. In addition to ministries of health, in many of our countries tobacco control will be routed through ministries of agriculture, trade, education, finance and social affairs. A truly viable public health tool has to be reflected in all those areas of governance which have a direct impact on people’s lives and health.

Over the past year, we have worked hard to build strong partnerships with the United Nations family. As of this year, WHO is the lead agency for a new United Nations Ad-Hoc Inter-Agency Task Force on Tobacco Control. It intensifies the joint response of the UN system to the tobacco epidemic and provides a multi-sectoral mechanism for tackling the epidemic. Just two weeks ago in New York, 15 UN agencies met to discuss plans to strengthen tobacco control across the UN system.

An important tool has already emerged with our work with UNICEF - we are jointly looking at the potential power of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Work is ongoing to unleash the potential to monitor the tobacco epidemic as it affects young people and to use the Convention provisions to call upon national governments to take effective steps to implement comprehensive tobacco control measures. By linking work on the Commission to tobacco control, a broader constituency of advocates for action will emerge.

We are also working closely with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to study the long-term impact of a world free of tobacco so that we can seek support for farmers as they slowly move to other economic activities.

The Framework Convention and related protocols will provide basic global standards for tobacco control and will address trans-national issues like global advertising and promotion bans, smuggling, product regulation and trade. This basic regulatory framework will provide countries with adequate scope to improve upon so as to reflect their specific needs.

What we start today is a process. There will be some hard issues. There will be some differences of views as to the pace and scope of our work. But I believe we can work that out. I am pleased to see that so many countries have sent eminent delegations to take part in this work.

Today, tobacco claims one new victim every eight seconds. Future generations will be judging our efforts. I would like to hope that we can stand up to our responsibilities. When the history of international health is written some time in future, my hope and expectation is that this meeting in Geneva will figure as one that changed the course of public health.

Thank you.