The Tobacco Challenge – Legal and Consumer Protection by Geraint Howells (Book Review)
Alberto Alemanno
HEC Paris - Law Department
Common Market Law Review, Vol. 49, No. 6, 2012
Abstract:
Due to its emotive nature, the debate about smoking has always been (and still is) a topic that is capable of polarizing opinions, including those of legal scholars. As a result the relevant literature, whether legal or scientific, tends to be inherently biased either against or in favour of tobacco products. The Tobacco Challenge by Professor Geraint Howells, one of the leading experts in European Consumer Law, provides a welcome and notable exception to this trend. This book offers a balanced account of the legal, moral and public health challenges facing governmental efforts aimed at curbing tobacco consumption. Yet its merits go well beyond that of offering an objective examination and reconstruction of such a complex area of law and policy. Howells’s analysis is also refreshing, innovative and brave enough to challenge some of the main tenets of the health community’s dominant thinking. Although repetitive at times, this book deserves praise for revamping the moribund legal debate on tobacco regulation in Europe and beyond. Indeed, as the tobacco control discourse has been hijacked by the imperative of ‘de-normalization’, i.e. to change the broad social norms around using tobacco, the opportunities for the legal system to pause, question and contribute to actual tobacco control efforts have been significantly reduced in recent times.
Due to its emotive nature, the debate about smoking has always been (and still is) a topic that is capable of polarizing opinions, including those of legal scholars. As a result the relevant literature, whether legal or scientific, tends to be inherently biased either against or in favour of tobacco products. The Tobacco Challenge by Professor Geraint Howells, one of the leading experts in European Consumer Law, provides a welcome and notable exception to this trend. This book offers a balanced account of the legal, moral and public health challenges facing governmental efforts aimed at curbing tobacco consumption. Yet its merits go well beyond that of offering an objective examination and reconstruction of such a complex area of law and policy. Howells’s analysis is also refreshing, innovative and brave enough to challenge some of the main tenets of the health community’s dominant thinking. Although repetitive at times, this book deserves praise for revamping the moribund legal debate on tobacco regulation in Europe and beyond. Indeed, as the tobacco control discourse has been hijacked by the imperative of ‘de-normalization’, i.e. to change the broad social norms around using tobacco, the opportunities for the legal system to pause, question and contribute to actual tobacco control efforts have been significantly reduced in recent times.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 5
Keywords: EU Law, Tobacco control, Torts, Risk regulation, Lifestyle risk, plain packaging, TRIPS, WTOFull text available at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2050530
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