Recently, momentum has been growing around the human rights field understanding the extreme harm caused by tobacco companies. This is made particularly evident by an important win in a technical policy paper – a win that is directly related to advocacy efforts from ASH and our partners in the tobacco control community.

Human rights principles are the foundation of all our work, strategies, and approaches at ASH.

The last few years, ASH has coordinated a global movement to mobilize tobacco control advocates to call on UN human rights treaty bodies (which are legally binding) to help accelerate the tobacco control movement by including the harms of the tobacco industry in their technical papers on how governments can better protect their citizens’ human rights.

Smoking negatively impacts several human rights that are legally protected in binding UN human rights treaties, such as the right to life, right to health, right to education, children’s rights, women’s rights, and many others.

Because these human rights are protected by associated treaties, ASH and our partners report the tobacco industry’s human rights violations to respective UN treaty bodies when the signatory countries are reporting back to the UN with their progress protecting human rights.

Today’s Win for Human Rights

For the first time, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) — the UN human rights treaty body that protects women’s rights — has formally acknowledged the threat of tobacco use among women and girls in Luxembourg.

In their concluding observations, the CEDAW noted with concern that tobacco use rates in Luxembourg exceed the European average — especially among women and girls (because CEDAW is solely focused on women and girls).

CEDAW called on the government of Luxembourg to implement a national tobacco control plan with a gender lens. CEDAW’s “concluding observations” are a sort of homework assignment on what the government can do to better protect women’s rights in their country. And as we know in tobacco control, the best way to protect all of our human rights is to eliminate the tobacco epidemic.

This concluding observation comes as a result of the report ASH, Fondation Cancer, and Génération Sans Tabac Luxembourg submitted to the 90^th CEDAW session in February 2025 and our coordinated advocacy in prior years.

How we got to today’s win

ASH has consistently submitted reports to UN treaty bodies, but in 2024, we amplified those efforts by submitting 4 reports to one CEDAW session, where only 8 countries were being reviewed. Action on Smoking and Health was joined by ASH Canada, the Coalition for Americas’ Health (CLAS), and the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control (GGTC) in submitting reports on how the tobacco epidemic harms women and girls in Chile, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.

We successfully reported on the tobacco epidemic to CEDAW for half of the countries being reviewed at that October 2024 session. Our goal was to encourage them to include strengthening tobacco policies in their recommendations back to the countries on how to improve women’s rights.

ASH also secured an informal private briefing with members of the CEDAW committee in June of 2024, and we presented how tobacco harms human rights.

Looking Ahead

CEDAW’s concluding observations on Luxembourg are illustrative of the momentum and progress that ASH is facilitating for the tobacco control community in human rights mechanisms.

By remaining active, present and engaged at CEDAW, we are bringing new advocates into the fight against Big Tobacco, so we can end it faster.

This victory is about justice, equity, and holding the tobacco industry accountable for the human rights violations they cause through the production, manufacture and sale of a deadly product.

Thank you for standing with ASH. Your support fuels these wins—and the global movement to end the tobacco epidemic for good.

Source: ACTION ON SMOKING AND HEALTH