Last month, the Latin American legal teams from the Global Health Advocacy Incubator’s (GHAI) Food Policy program and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) hosted a joint legal workshop in Mexico for lawyers working on healthy food policy and tobacco control in the region. The workshop was a collaboration with Food Policy program Colombia partner Dejusticia and the Global Center for Legal Innovation on Food Environments at the O’Neill Institute. This workshop combined the 12th tobacco control legal workshop with the fifth food and health law workshop, consolidating more than a decade of regional efforts, strengthening capacity of lawyers working in the field.
Together, the food and tobacco control legal teams from Latin America explored the legal challenges, opportunities, connections and lessons learned from both movements. During the three-day workshop, more than 50 lawyers from the region participated in the event. The workshop included sessions on evidence for litigation; challenges when regulating advertising of tobacco products and ultra-processed food and beverages; human rights and environmental impacts from these industries; among others. Although the event focused on legal discussions and presentations, GHAI and CTFK conducted a specific communications-focused training to further develop and hone lawyers’ communications skills.
“I found it interesting to have discussions from both experiences, since it allowed us to identify issues where progress has already been made and issues that would be worth studying further.” – Natalia Anzola, Red PaPaz, Colombia
“The workshop was enriching, because it made it easier for me to identify arguments and counter-arguments and possibilities to boost moments and actors that operate in a similar way in both food and tobacco.” – Mylena Gualdron, FIAN Colombia
At the end of the workshop, the book, “Law, Trade and Nutritional Labeling” (in Spanish) was released, which is a collaboration of Dejusticia with University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia and GHAI, and highlights lessons learned from food policy advocacy in Latin America. The book includes academic articles discussing the connections between international trade law and front of package labeling (FOPL) as well as case studies from advocacy efforts and policy discussions around FOPL in Latin America.
To read the book, click here.
July 27, 2026
The FIFA World Cup is more than a football tournament; it stirs passion and captures the attention of billions worldwide, making it one of the most powerful commercial platforms on earth. Global brands compete to associate their products with the excitement and sense of belonging the sport inspires. But when that marketing targets children and adolescents, boundaries of advertising should be drawn.
July 20, 2026
To help advocates, public health professionals, policymakers and researchers apply that science in their own countries, the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) has launched a new free online course, “Nutrient Profile Models: A Tool for Healthy Food Policies.” The course allows users to go at their own pace, explains how NPMs work and offers practical examples for using them in policy advocacy.
July 13, 2026
The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) developed this Sweetened Beverages Tax Position Paper as a guide on how to explicitly design SB taxes to improve population health. The paper recommends ways to ensure that the tax will make all unhealthy drinks less affordable, reduce their consumption over time and result in a decrease in diet-related diseases. It urges governments to reinvest the revenue towards health promotion to further its health and equity impact. It argues that there is a missed opportunity if governments do not design strong SB taxes primed to reach their intended public health potential.
