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Background and aims Following calls for restrictions and bans on alcohol advertising, and in light of the tobacco industry's challenge to Australia's tobacco plain packaging measure, a tobacco control measure finding support in the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, this paper considers what role, if any, an international alcohol marketing code might have in preventing or reducing the risk of challenges to domestic alcohol marketing restrictions under trade rules. Methods Narrative review of international trade and health instruments and international trade court judgements regarding alcohol products and marketing restrictions. Findings The experience of European trade courts in the litigation of similar measures suggests that World Trade Organization rules have sufficient flexibility to support the implementation of alcohol marketing restrictions. However, the experience also highlights the possibility that public health measures have disproportionate and unjustifiable trade effects and that the ability of a public health measure to withstand a challenge under trade rules will turn on its particular design and implementation. Conclusion Measures implemented pursuant to international public health instruments are not immune to trade law challenges. Close collaboration between health policymakers, trade officials and lawyers, from as early as the research stage in the development of a measure to ensure a robust evidence base, will ensure the best chance of regulatory survival for an international marketing code.

Following calls for restrictions and bans on alcohol advertising, and in light of the tobacco industry's challenge to Australia's tobacco plain packaging measure, a tobacco control measure finding support in the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, this paper considers what role, if any, an international alcohol marketing code might have in preventing or reducing the risk of challenges to domestic alcohol marketing restrictions under trade rules.Narrative review of international trade and health instruments and international trade court judgements regarding alcohol products and marketing restrictions.The experience of European trade courts in the litigation of similar measures suggests that World Trade Organization rules have sufficient flexibility to support the implementation of alcohol marketing restrictions. However, the experience also highlights the possibility that public health measures have disproportionate and unjustifiable trade effects and that the ability of a public health measure to withstand a challenge under trade rules will turn on its particular design and implementation.Measures implemented pursuant to international public health instruments are not immune to trade law challenges. Close collaboration between health policymakers, trade officials and lawyers, from as early as the research stage in the development of a measure to ensure a robust evidence base, will ensure the best chance of regulatory survival for an international marketing code.

The fragmented and complex nature of the regulation of resource exploration, extraction and production in Australia, coupled with the seemingly constant changing face of Australian politics in recent years, poses unique challenges for policy makers and industry alike, despite relatively free and open trade in natural resources. Addressing the nation’s energy security needs means balancing Australia’s interests as a major global energy exporter against domestic consumption requirements and pricing pressures while securing long-term energy sustainability. Australia’s current energy policy agenda, recently outlined in the federal government’s Energy White Paper, attempts to strike this balance, but does more in the way of demonstrating the challenges than addressing them.