Tobacco Control and the Role of Litigation: A Survey of Issues in Law, Policy, and Economics

This article examines the course of tobacco litigation in the United States and its implications for law and policy in the future, both in the U.S. and internationally. In our view, the different legal traditions and attitudes of other countries when applied to the current balance achieved in the U.S. through a mix of litigation, settlement, and regulation will lead the majority of such states to opt for the direct and transparent regulation of tobacco activities through formal and perhaps consensual channels, thereby bypassing the long and costly stage of litigation that characterized the U.S. process. Therefore, despite some increased litigation in the product liability area as a whole, the approach to tobacco control on the international level is likely to be characterized by the continuing, and, indeed, increased reliance on direct regulation rather than on ad hoc litigation, the efficiencies of the former approach having now become evident.