The Legality, Rationale and Science of Tobacco Display Bans after the Philip Morris Judgment

The EFTA Court’s judgment in Philip Morris vs Norway, delivered on September 12, 2011, is one of the first decisions adopted by an international court upon the legality of an entire new generation of tobacco control measures, such as visual display bans at point of sale, with trade rules. As a result, this ruling is noteworthy not only for the originality of its underlying legal reasoning and final outcome, but also for its impact on future judicial and legislative developments related to tobacco control across the world. Besides its immediate impact on Norway and Iceland – the first country in the world to introduce visual display ban of cigarettes in 2001 – this judgment is set to determine also the legality of the existing visual display bans adopted in the EU: in Ireland, United Kingdom and Finland. More crucially, its outcome is expected to shape the on-going revision of the EU Tobacco Products Directive at a time in which the EU Commission is considering the introduction of a EU-wide visual display ban. This analysis provides a detailed legal analysis of the Philip Morris’s judgment and it also predicts the overall impact of the ruling within the broader legal and policy debate concerning the future of tobacco control policies in the European Union and beyond