European Institute for Food Law series – serie

This Festschrift honors the remarkable career of Prof. Dr.h.c. Huub Lelieveld, celebrating his 80th birthday and the 20th anniversary of the Global Harmonization Initiative (GHI). Spanning a distinguished career across industry, academia, and public service, Huub's dedication to excellence, innovation, and ethics has profoundly impacted all those who have worked with him, from colleagues at Unilever to members of the GHI.This compilation of research papers, contributed by friends and colleagues who have collaborated with Huub, explores diverse and significant topics close to his heart. These include the realization of food culture, nutrition, food safety, religious food regulations during times of conflict, food fortification, novel food technologies like irradiation, improving religious slaughter practices, safe cassava consumption, and sustainable food futures and environmental responsibility and planetary health.Each article serves as a tribute to his vision and legacy, highlighting his lasting influence on global food science and public health.

The food sector is the third most regulated industry in the EU. It is the most important production sector, but its competitiveness and innovativeness are under pressure.This book reports on a legal research into the question if there is a connection between the sector’s declining innovativeness and competitiveness on the one hand and the increasing regulatory burden on the other hand. The aim is to indicate opportunities to remove avoidable obstacles for the food industry in general and small and medium enterprises in particular.The book brings to light several shortcomings in the regulatory framework and makes concrete recommendations for simplifying and improving EU food legislation. The findings are based on fundamental legal analyses. They are combined with the following three empirical case studies:-premarket approval schemes, for novel foods in particular;-the application of the EU food hygiene package in the dairy sector in selected regions in Italy and France; and-private standards in the Dutch dairy sector.The book shows that compliance by the EU legislator and authorities with EU food law principles and requirements is key to improving the position of food businesses.

There is no one in this world who would deny the importance of access to adequate food for every human being. In fact, access to food has been declared a human right in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In spite of the right to food to be more than half a century old, many are not aware, misunderstand or even marginalize this human right. This book serves two purposes and many audiences. First, it is meant for those who want to get a better understanding of the right to food and how this right has been developed in international law. Second, it also explains why this human right has been marginalized by one of the richest countries in the world: the Netherlands. As such this unique collection of articles provides an exciting view on the making of law and policy, with contributions from lawyers, sociologists and human rights defenders.

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, food security still is a dream rather than reality: 'a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life'. Political commitments at world summits on food security, market-based agricultural policies, science-based food safety regulation and voluntary guidelines on the right to food have not ended hunger, malnourishment or food safety crises in our world. The question arises whether food insecurity is a situation that exists in spite of these commitments and legal measures, or rather due to them?This book has three purposes. Firstly, it offers insights in how law, politics and the right to food contribute to food security in both positive and negative ways. For this purpose, different theories, concepts and methodologies from legal, political, anthropological and sociological sciences are used and developed. Secondly, the book explains that food security and food policies cannot be treated as given, at one level or in one domain only. This is done in different ways: by pointing out the emergence of new paradigms on food security, human rights and science that shape food policies; by showing how law and policies at one level affect food security at another level; and by treating food security and food policies as linked to governance regimes of agriculture, food, feed, water or property. Finally, the book offers scholarly analysis of paradigms and practices but also presents social science-based ways to indirectly contribute to food security, varying from improving justiciability to building trust, from seeking ways to address non-scientific concerns to creating room for plurality of lifestyles and norms, from unmasking dominant discourse to understanding or strengthening abilities or arrangements to cope with vulnerability.

Since the turn of the Millennium, world-wide initiatives from the private sector have turned the regulatory environment for food businesses upside down. For the first time in legal literature this book analyses private law initiatives relating to the food chain, often referred to as private (voluntary) standards or schemes.Private standards are used to remedy flaws in legislation, in order to reach higher levels of consumer protection than the ones chosen by the EU legislature and to manage risks and liability beyond the traditional limits of food businesses. We see that litigation is no longer solely framed by legislative requirements, but ever more by private standards such as GlobalGAP, BRC, IFS, SQF and ISO. These private standards incorporate public law requirements thus embedding them in contractual relations and exporting them beyond the jurisdiction of public legislators. Other standards focus on corporate social responsibility or sustainability. This book also addresses how private religious standards such as Kosher and Halal play a role in defining specific markets of growing importance. It is noted that organic standards have found an interesting symbioses with public law.Another development on this topic is that food businesses are inspected more often by private auditors than by public inspectors. Effects in terms of receiving or being denied certification far outweigh public law sanctions. In short private law has changed an entire legal infrastructure for the food sector. It emerges as competing with the public law regulatory infrastructure.This book is of interest to all who concern themselves with food law legislation and litigation and the evolving role of private standards on changing the landscape of food chains and innovation.

Animal cloning, nanotechnology, and genetic modifications are all examples of recent controversies around food regulation where scientific evidence occupies a central position. This book provides a fresh perspective on EU scientific food safety governance by offering a legal insight into risk analysis and the precautionary principle, positioned as general principles of EU food law.To explain what the science-based requirement means in EU multi-level governance, this book places these principles in the legislative dynamics of the EU internal market and the meta-framework of the international trade regime established by the WTO. Numerous examples of the case-law of European Courts show implications of risk analysis and science-based food law for EU and national decision makers, as well as food businesses.This book focuses on the crucial aspects of the risk analysis methodology. It redefines the precautionary principle and clarifies its scope of application. It analyses the extent to which non-scientific factors, such as consumers' risk perception, local traditions or ethical considerations, can be taken into account at national and EU level. This book argues that, compared to EU institutions, the autonomy allocated to national authorities is much more limited, which raises questions about the legitimacy of food safety governance in the EU.

While the right to adequate food is often discussed in the context of developing countries, especially in situations where access to adequate food is a problem on a larger scale, this book focusses on the right to food in two Western countries in which theoretically the circumstances allow this right to be enjoyed by each individual. Through a legal comparative study, the enforceability of the right to food is compared between the Netherlands and Belgium in light of the current UN Human Rights system. There seems to be a difference between what the countries do, what they say they do, and what they should do on the matter. As it appears, the coincidental constitutional circumstances mainly determine the enforceability of the right to food, rather than the content of the human right in itself.This book includes a thorough analysis of suitable comparative legal methodology and the embedment of the right to food in the UN human right system. Furthermore, for both countries, an in-depth analysis of the case law on the right to food (mostly concerning the status of foreigners), the constitutional context in which the Judiciary operates, and the relevant UN reports and subsequent procedures are outlined. Finally, recommendations are made to both countries and the relevant UN Committees.