UPDATE ON BAN ASBESTOS CAMPAIGN
Laurie Kazan-Allen
Presented at Asbestos Seminar
Brussels, Belgium, October 23, 2011
For decades, a global battle has been raging over the public perception of asbestos. In thebad old days, asbestos was highly prized and widely used and had nicknames such as“white gold” and “magic mineral.” Nowadays, asbestos is categorized as the world’s
worst industrial toxin. We call it the “killer dust”. The change from magic mineral tokiller dust has been the result of years of consensus building by asbestos victims, healthand safety campaigners, trade unionists, community activists, politicians, medical andlegal professionals and other members of civil society who have reached out not only to
the grassroots but also to governments, international agencies and social partners. Therecan be no doubt that the ban asbestos movement which had for decades lingered on theouter fringes of society has now become mainstream. A brief look at some salient
statistics reveals just how much has changed in the first decade of this century.

Year2000
2010

Changing Asbestos Panorama – 2010 versus 2000NationalAsbestos Using
Percentage of Global Use
1Bans
Nations
Asia Europe South America
18664735
1055
3964268Africa
6-There has been a 41% decrease in the number of asbestos-consuming countries and morethan a 3-fold increase in the number of countries banning its use. An analysis of thetiming of national bans is informative.
Implementation of National Bans
PeriodYears
National Bans
Number perAdoptedYear
1982-1991
1080.80
1992-2001
1015
1.50
2002-20111032
3.20
In the last decade, the number of national bans adopted exceeded those achieved over theprevious twenty.
Shifting Perceptions – How Did this Happen?
For decades, vested asbestos interests maintained a stranglehold on national asbestos
debates, in some countries they still do. Raising public awareness of the asbestos hazard
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Only countries using more than 500 tonnes of asbestos a year were included.

1required redefining the questions being asked and the voices being heard in these debates.
In democratic countries, the only thing which changes government policies is publicpressure. That asbestos has been banned in 55 countries owes much to the collaborative
efforts of asbestos victims groups, trade unions, NGOs, and members of the global banasbestos community. Since 1999, the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat has worked
with social, political and trade union partners on ban asbestos initiatives on 6 continents.
During this time we have learned several important lessons
Observation 1: No one ever gave asbestos victims anything they didn’t fight for.
No national government and no negligent employer ever voluntarily compensated those
who had been injured by asbestos. Nor did they offer to provide state of the art medicaltreatment to the victims. As a consequence of the universal neglect by political andsocial establishments, those affected by the asbestos plague had to extract every benefit,every concession, every medical improvement and every penny of compensation bit bybloody bit. In the UK we have been engaged in this process for more than 40 year; andwe are still fighting.
Observation 2: Wherever progress has been made or rights been obtained, they will
be attacked.
A few days ago was the 20th anniversary of the overturn of the United States ban on
asbestos. The ban was reversed as a result of judicial action by the Federal Governmentof Canada, the Province of Quebec, Canadian asbestos stakeholders and other vestedinterests. The overturn of the U.S. ban came at a huge cost to the industry – employing
heavy weight lawyers in Canada and the US, political consultants and public relations
lobbyists over a ten year period does not come cheaply. Unfortunately, the price paid by
innocent human beings who, as a result of the ban’s reversal, have been exposed toasbestos has been much higher. In years to come, there will be many asbestos-related
deaths in America as a result of the overturn of the asbestos ban. What happened to theUS ban has a relevance that transcends national borders. The court action which
succeeded in reversing the 10 years of work which had gone into formulating the US
asbestos phase-out law was one of the first legal actions taken by the asbestos lobby.
We all remember what happened when the French government banned asbestos – in aneffort to overturn that ban, the Canadian Government brought a high-profile case at theWorld Trade Organization. The asbestos stakeholders lost the case, but even so theybought valuable time during which more asbestos was sold and more disinformation wasspread. The lies and propaganda spouted by asbestos vested interests continue.
Observation 3: Wherever people battle the injustice caused by asbestos, you can be
sure that asbestos victims are leading the way.
The most effective weapon in fighting the multinational asbestos lobby is the voice of thevictims; wherever victims groups have organized, change has come. Indeed it is thevictims’ groups which have been responsible for asbestos bans in many countries and forthe implementation of legal, judicial and administrative changes which have improved2the circumstances of many of the injured. We pay tribute to the victims and their loved
ones and affirm that our commitment to the struggle is as strong as ever. Tomorrow thelong-awaited court case brought by the family of Francois Jonckheere against Eternit will
begin. We are gathering together in Brussels today to pay tribute to her memory and toassure her family of our support.
Eternit has been responsible for a worldwide epidemic of asbestos-related disease anddeath. The Turin and Brussels trials are testament to the determination to hold thisnegligent corporation and its executives to account for the decisions which prioritizedcorporate profits over occupational and public health. Even as we demand justice forFrancois and her family, we reaffirm our commitment to end the global use of asbestos.
The struggle continues.

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