The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) tobacco treaty is a landmark treaty that has made enormous contributions to reducing the world's tobacco disease epidemic by allowing nations to implement tobacco control regulations. The WHO FCTC has been ratified (passed into law) by 181 countries and only 16 countries, including the USA, have not yet ratified this important treaty.
This means that US tobacco companies are not subject to the regulations of the WHO FCTC treaty. This partly explains why US tobacco companies can break tobacco advertising and marketing regulations in developing countries. Poor children in Africa and Asia, in particular, have been targeted by foreign tobacco companies, encouraging an epidemic of tobacco diseases there.