Plain tobacco packaging and investment proceedings on the issue has been described as an affront to the rule of law in Australia. Dr Patricia Ranald, Convener of the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network said that big tobacco and other global corporations are lobbying hard to include the right of foreign investors to sue governments in the current negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). Philip Morris International lost its case in December 2015. In November 2011, British American Tobacco announced that it would challenge the laws in the High Court as soon as they gained royal assent. In August 2012, the High
Tobacco Products Control Act, 1993 Tobacco Products Control Act, 1993 The Tobacco Products Control Act was introduced in South Africa in 1993, where smoking has been rated the second highest health concern, after HIV/AIDS. This act has been amended several time during the past decade and today South Africa has some of the strictest tobacco control measures ever adopted by the government of a developing country. It is estimated that cigarette consumption has fallen dramatically since the early 1990s while the percentage of adult smokers in the country has dropped from 32 to 26.5 percent. The South African Government passed the first Tobacco Products Control