Alcohol control has long been recognised as a public health concern. Recent years have also seen increased recognition of the relationship between alcohol control and the human rights agenda. However, fragmentation exists in key global governance instruments over the role alcohol control plays as a human rights priority. The relative success of tobacco control illustrates how utilisation of agendas beyond public health can mobilise action.

Occupying the dual space of psychoactive substances and food, alcohol has to date escaped the international labelling standards required of either category. Following growing consumer concern focused on ingredient and energy labelling, the issue of alcohol labelling has been brought to the Codex Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL). Russia led the development of a discussion paper on the labelling of alcohol beverages, which was debated in May 2019. The discussion paper presented five policy options, ranging from doing nothing to initiating open-ended work on a new Codex standard. The progression of alcohol labelling through the CCFL raises a number of issues for public health advocates, as placing alcohol within the scope of the Codex clearly places labelling within the food system and has the potential to side-line health labelling concerns. This paper will first describe the process leading to the consideration of alcohol labelling at the CCFL and then consider the health and advocacy implications of the different options proposed to progress the work plan.

This article addresses the question of how the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol (Global Strategy) and its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) have been used in the context of discussions about alcohol and tobacco measures, respectively, in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade. The article finds considerable differences not only in the extent to which the FCTC is used compared to the Global Strategy , but also in the ways in which the two global health instruments have been used in the WTO context. The article proffers three key reasons for these differences: the legal status of the instrument; the content of the instrument in terms of whether it contains guidance as to the use of detailed, evidence-based measures; and the role and legitimacy that the instrument accords to the relevant industry interests. The article considers how the insights from the research can inform the developments in global governance of alcohol that are underway in WHO policy. It also positions its findings in terms of the wider international law debates about hard law versus soft law, and whether different types of international regulatory instruments and the legal status of these instruments impact their effectiveness in supporting domestic public health measures.

Alcohol is the sole major psychoactive substance with a huge negative public health and social impact without some form of international control grounded in a binding treaty. While existing rules of international law, in particular in the economic field, favour liberalisation and may hinder strong national alcohol control measures, we may be witnessing a turning of the tide due to the growing mobilisation against non-communicable diseases. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has been a ground-breaking development in this sense, and has led policymakers and advocates in a number of countries to raise the possibility of a similar convention on alcohol control. The present contribution compares tobacco and alcohol from this perspective and considers the feasibility of a dedicated international convention. It concludes that the political prospects of a movement in this direction are very dim at the present time; however, policy developments on other health problems and theoretical models emerging from constructivist international relations scholarship may open up promising perspectives for considering normative and institutional approaches that could strengthen the existing legal framework and facilitate political processes towards stronger forms of legalisation of global alcohol control.

Since the adoption of the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003, public health professionals have debated similar conventions covering other health risks, including potentially a Framework Convention on Alcohol Control. Much of this debate has focused on the merits of binding versus non-binding instruments in terms of commitments at the international level. In this paper, I draw on lessons from the WHO FCTC to discuss instead what the difference between binding and non-binding international legal instruments might mean for domestic legal frameworks for implementing regulatory measures for alcohol control. The paper looks at possible impacts on the authority of various national authorities to implement new measures, the ability of civil society to bring cases compelling more comprehensive regulatory measures and the defence of litigation brought by commercial-sector actors to prevent, delay or weaken the implementation of laws and regulations. It reflects on what lessons these might have for alcohol control governance.

Alcohol use has been identified in major United Nations (UN) initiatives, such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Non-Communicable Disease Action Plan, as a major contributor to the global burden of disease. As a result, levels of alcohol use serve as an official indicator of progress towards these UN-set goals. Given current trends, UN targets for reduced alcohol consumption are unlikely to be met. Moreover, in many countries, especially in low- and middle-income countries, the alcohol-attributable burden of disease continues to increase. Pressure will need to be exerted on national and international decision-makers to arrive at more powerful and normatively persuasive instruments, such as a treaty.