The McCabe Centre for Law and Cancer recently completed its 8th International Legal Training Course on law and noncommunicable disease prevention. 14 participants from 12 WHO FCTC parties – Botswana, Laos, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zambia – attended the course, held at Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne, Australia from 30 April to 18 May 2018. We were pleased to also be joined by representatives of the WHO Regional Office for Africa and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

The course builds capacity in the use of law to prevent cancer and other NCDs, in the context of ensuring coherence across health, sustainable development, human rights, trade, and investment. It is primarily aimed at government lawyers in low- and middle-income countries. The course covers obligations under, and implementation of, the WHO FCTC; legal challenges to tobacco control measures under trade, investment, and domestic law; and lessons learned from challenges to Australia and Uruguay’s tobacco packaging and labelling measures. These are discussed in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, the global NCD agenda, human rights law, and gender equality.

Ernest Mae, a participant from the Ministry of Health in the Solomon Islands, said of the course:

“For me I see it as an opportunity and an avenue to learn from each other. There’s a quote I said when we started this program, “no man is an island”. For Solomon Islands to function well, it needs to learn lessons from other countries…Having the opportunity to sit down and listen to experts from their various fields is a privilege.”

The course, conducted in collaboration with WHO and the Secretariat to the WHO FCTC as a McCabe Centre Knowledge Hub activity, was primarily supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with additional support for participants received from the FCTC2030 programme of the WHO FCTC Secretariat, the William Rudder Memorial Fund, the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific, and the WHO Regional Office for Africa.

For enquiries about the course, please contact the WHO FCTC Secretariat at fctcsecretariat at who.int.