The Court consolidated two cases on tobacco advertising. In the first case, the petitioner sued the government of Bangladesh for failure to adequately enforce a statutory warning to disclose tobacco's effects on health. The second case involved the use of a touring luxury yacht by British American Tobacco (BAT) to advertise its cigarettes. Invoking the right to life and liberty guaranteed by the Constitution of Bangladesh, the petitioner urged the court to declare advertisement of tobacco products illegal. In its opinion, the Court recognized the harms of smoking and agreed with petitioners that the BAT yacht constituted an “advertisement” and that, more broadly, the use of any advertisement for cigarettes without appropriate health warnings offended the constitutional right to life. The Court, among other actions, directed the government to take steps to restrict tobacco production and smoking in public and prohibited certain advertising and promotion of tobacco products.
Islam, et al. v. Bangladesh, 52 DLR 2000 413, High Court of Bangladesh (2000).
An individual or organization may sue their own government in order to advance or protect the public interest. For example, an NGO may sue the government claiming the government’s weak tobacco control laws violated their constitutional right to health.
Measures to regulate the marketing on tobacco packages. This includes both bans on false, misleading, deceptive packaging, as well as required health warnings on packaging.
(See FCTC Art. 11)
A violation of the right to live in a safe and healthy environment.
Type of Tobacco Product
None
Limitations regarding the use of quotes The quotes provided here reflect statements from a specific decision. Accordingly, the International Legal Consortium (ILC) cannot guarantee that an appellate court has not reversed a lower court decision which may influence the applicability or influence of a given quote. All quotes have been selected based on the subjective evaluations undertaken by the ILC meaning that quotes provided here may not accurately or comprehensively represent a given court’s opinion or conclusion, as such quotes may have originally appeared alongside other negative opinions or accompanying facts. Further, some quotes are derived from unofficial English translations, which may alter their original meaning. We emphasize the need to review the original decision and related decisions before authoritatively relying on quotes. Using quotes provided here should not be construed as legal advice and is not intended to be a substitute for legal counsel on any subject matter in any jurisdiction. Please see the full limitations at https://www.tobaccocontrollaws.org/about.
"[I]t is abundantly clear that before a detrimental action can be taken there must be some law which permits that any action detrimental to life, body, liberty or property of a person can be taken. No such law is in existence in Bangladesh. Mere non-existence of such permissive law is not enough to take detrimental actions invading the right to life of a citizen for the State could not pass such law which are contrary to the fundamental rights of a citizen. There is no law permitting cigarette advertisement on the news [media], bill boards or on the electronic medias and such advertisements have the effect of propagating and inducing people, particularly the younger generation to adopt smoking habit which results in endangering human life and environment. Thus, advertisement of cigarette and cigarette related products bidi on T.V/Radio, newspaper, [pamphlets], Billboard or through any other means are steps which can be termed detrimental to life and body of the people and in this view of the matter Article 31 of the Constitution is directly contravened by advertisements in any form of Telecasting and Board casting of cigarette/bidi [commercial] on the TV and Radio Bill boards, newspapers etc."
Limitations regarding the use of quotes The quotes provided here reflect statements from a specific decision. Accordingly, the International Legal Consortium (ILC) cannot guarantee that an appellate court has not reversed a lower court decision which may influence the applicability or influence of a given quote. All quotes have been selected based on the subjective evaluations undertaken by the ILC meaning that quotes provided here may not accurately or comprehensively represent a given court’s opinion or conclusion, as such quotes may have originally appeared alongside other negative opinions or accompanying facts. Further, some quotes are derived from unofficial English translations, which may alter their original meaning. We emphasize the need to review the original decision and related decisions before authoritatively relying on quotes. Using quotes provided here should not be construed as legal advice and is not intended to be a substitute for legal counsel on any subject matter in any jurisdiction. Please see the full limitations at https://www.tobaccocontrollaws.org/about.
The Court consolidated two cases on tobacco advertising. In the first case, the petitioner sued the government of Bangladesh for failure to adequately enforce a statutory warning to disclose tobacco's effects on health. The second case involved the use of a touring luxury yacht by British American Tobacco (BAT) to advertise its cigarettes. Invoking the right to life and liberty guaranteed by the Constitution of Bangladesh, the petitioner urged the court to declare advertisement of tobacco products illegal. In its opinion, the Court recognized the harms of smoking and agreed with petitioners that the BAT yacht constituted an “advertisement” and that, more broadly, the use of any advertisement for cigarettes without appropriate health warnings offended the constitutional right to life. The Court, among other actions, directed the government to take steps to restrict tobacco production and smoking in public and prohibited certain advertising and promotion of tobacco products.