Smoke screen? The globalization of production, transnational lobbying and the international political economy of plain tobacco packaging

In 2012, Australia became the first country in the world to introduce plain tobacco packaging in an effort to reduce tobacco consumption. This move was vehemently opposed by the tobacco industry, which challenged it on several levels: nationally, bilaterally and multilaterally at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The political behaviour of the tobacco companies in this case is puzzling both in terms of scale, operating at multiple levels at the same time, and in terms of the countries mobilized in their defence. WTO litigation is typically the result of multinational enterprises (MNEs) lobbying their own government, but here third countries were mobilized. Lobbying in third country contexts, with the objective of accessing multilateral dispute settlement systems, has been little studied. We thus know very little about the driving factors behind such activities, how target governments are selected and what lobbying strategies are used. This article draws on emerging research on transnational lobbying and a case study of the plain packaging case to explore these issues in detail and, by doing so, aims to further our theoretical understanding of the political economy of international trade in the context of increasing regime complexity and globalization of production. In addition, the article sheds new light on advocacy in the context of disputes about cross-border challenges to domestic regulation.