SCMP
On behalf of the World Health Organisation, I would like to answer the questions that Jake van der Kamp asks in his Monitor column (“Smoking out the real victim of heavy tobacco taxation”, February 6) about the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), to which Hong Kong is now a party. Van der Kamp asks: “Did Legco approve it, did Exco sanction it, did the chief executive sign it into law?” This is not the way of any of UN conventions.
The signatories are national governments; thus in Hong Kong’s case, since 1997, China. In keeping with this, and specifically with regard to the FCTC, on October 11, 2005, the government of China informed the UN secretary general of the following: “In accordance with the provision of article 153 of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and article 138 of the Basic Law of the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, the government of the People’s Republic of China decides that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control . . . shall apply to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macau Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China.”
As with all UN treaties, Hong Kong’s reporting mechanism is also through China.
Dr Judith Mackay, senior policy adviser, World Health Organisation