But industry lobbying appears to have persuaded delegates to a global conference on tobacco regulation not to recommend tough new limits on adding aromas and flavors like licorice and chocolate to cigarettes to make them more palatable to first-time smokers.

The additives question will likely be sent back to a working group for more development, said Nick Guroff, a spokesman for the watchdog group Corporate Accountability International.

“Big Tobacco has been very overt in subverting public health policy until they can’t get away with it anymore, at which time it exports all of the same tactics to countries that have less political will to combat the same tactics,” Guroff complained.

He scoffed at the industry’s key argument — that small tobacco growers in developing countries would be devastated by a ban — and expressed frustration at seeing industry lobbyists working the conference rooms in Uruguay’s Punta del Este beach resort.

The conference ending Friday was sponsored by the World Health Organization and brought together 171 nations that have signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control treaty.

Signatory nations promise to apply laws and pursue public health policies to reduce smoking and protect citizens from second-hand smoke.

The United States has not signed. It has a lot at stake.

The International Tobacco Growers’ Association claims a ban on additives could threaten the makers of American Burley tobacco, which is blended into nearly half of the cigarettes sold globally and tastes harsher than other varieties. About 80 percent of US burley is exported.

Delegates did formally support Uruguay’s tough tobacco laws, which prohibit smoking in enclosed private and public spaces and require 80 percent of each cigarette package to be covered with graphic images of smoking’s consequences.

The US Food and Drug Administration last week proposed similarly graphic warning labels showing corpses, cancer patients, diseased lungs and rotting teeth and gums over 50 percent of each pack sold in the US, starting in 2012.

Since Canada introduced similar warning labels in 2000, its smoking rates have declined from about 26 percent to about 20 percent.

But Uruguay, as President Jose Mujica said, is a “little country” whose annual GDP of about $44 billion is dwarfed by the $108 billion market capitalization of Philip Morris International.

PMI has asked World Bank arbitrators to find Uruguay in violation of its trade agreement with Switzerland, where the company has a headquarters.

“The Uruguayan government has done something which no other government has done, doesn’t seem to make any sense to us from a public health perspective and has clearly damaged our investment there,” said PMI spokesman Peter Nixon.

The company is seeking the suspension of trade regulations and “substantial” monetary compensation, Nixon said. He would not give a specific dollar amount, but losing could clearly cost Uruguay millions.

Mujica — a former leftist guerrilla who became a determined pragmatist in prison during the country’s dictatorship — worried openly only weeks ago about having to hire $1,500-an-hour lawyers in foreign capitals.

But then Mujica saw that many other governments want Uruguay to stand firm — and got promises of support from some deep pockets, including New York’s billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who called Mujica to say his foundation would help foot the legal bills.

Bloomberg, a former smoker and anti-tobacco evangelist, banned smoking in bars and restaurants and has proposed outlawing smoking in city parks and plazas. Globally, he donated millions for tobacco control laws and public health training in 42 countries.

“The tobacco industry is keenly focused on Uruguay because Uruguay’s leaders did the right thing around hard-hitting packaging laws,” Bloomberg said in a statement, adding that five million people die each year from tobacco-related illnesses.

Mujica acknowledged that he too has been a determined smoker. “This is an enemy that is never defeated,” he told the conference.

“I was imprisoned for many years, and to annoy me they would deny me tobacco,” he recalled. “One day I told the authorities: I won’t smoke again. And I was seven years without smoking. When i finally got out, I started to smoke again. I would have smoked a broomstick.”

“This fight isn’t finished,” he went on. “There are many addictions that are menacing life, and they’re all multiplied by the great addiction of our time: the excessive love of money.”

The industry says banning additives could cost millions of jobs and devastate economies — claims rejected by some conference participants who said growers could switch to less-harsh-tasting tobacco varieties, or other crops entirely.

Albino Gewehr, director of Brazil’s Family Farm Worker Federation, said the industry’s economic argument is false because Burley tobacco production requires fewer workers.

Banning additives would prompt a switch to sweeter tobacco varieties requiring more labor and thus helping small farms, he said.

ITGA lobbyists said the treaty threatens the livelihood of 30 million tobacco growers, and estimated that 3.6 million people depend on tobacco cultivation in just five African countries.

Reducing the demand for Burley tobacco could shrink the economy of Malawi alone by 20 percent, the ITGA said in a statement it said was signed by 235,000 growers in 26 countries.

Smokers face tax hikes, bans, health concerns and social stigma worldwide, but the impacts on cigarette demand are less stark outside the United States, and that’s where both sides are focusing their energies now.

And while PMI has sued other governments as well, Uruguay stands out because its graphic warning rules are among the world’s toughest. Most other countries require warnings that cover half the cigarette packages or less.

“If they can win here it would be very influential globally,” Guroff said.

Last year, global cigarette volumes fell less than 1 percent to 5.68 trillion sticks for the nearly 901 million people who smoke, according to Euromonitor International, while industry estimates show a nearly 9 percent decline in US volumes in 2009.

Philip Morris International, second only to China National Tobacco Corp. in size, now focuses on emerging markets where growing middle classes have more discretionary income for the first time.

In the third quarter, the company said cigarette shipments grew 4.5 percent from a year ago to 229.2 billion sticks.

Especially key were large gains in Asia, including Indonesia, Korea and Pakistan.

Philip Morris International, with offices in New York and in Lausanne, Switzerland, was spun off by Altria Group Inc. in Richmond, Virginia, owner of Philip Morris USA in 2008, freeing it to pursue cigarette sales more aggressively outside the US.

Even if these treaty countries do formally recommend banning tobacco additives, it’s hard to know how many would follow through, said Roger Quarles, a Kentucky burley grower and president of the International Tobacco Growers’ Association.

“It goes down to how strongly a country would wish to act on this,” Quarles said. “The objective (of the treaty) at the end of the day is to eliminate tobacco consumption, period.”