Food safety has become a major concern for consumers in the developed world and Europe in particular. This has been highlighted by the recent spate of food scares ranging from the BSE (mad cow) crisis to Chinese melamine contamination of baby formula. To ensure food safety throughout Europe, stringent food safety standards have been put in place ‘from farm to fork’. At the same time, poor African countries in the COMESA rely on their food exports to the European market to achieve their development goals yet have difficulty meeting the EU food safety standards. This book examines the impact of EU food safety standards on food imports from COMESA countries. It also critically examines both EU and COMESA food safety standards in light of the WTO SPS Agreement and the jurisprudence of the WTO panels and Appellate Body. The book makes ground-breaking proposals on how the standards divide between the EU and the COMESA can be bridged and discusses the impact of EU food safety standards on food imports from poor African countries.

Global Trade Law Series, Volume 55 India, one of the world’s foremost trading nations, exhibits a particularly complex regulatory landscape with a variety of standard-setting bodies, regulators, accreditation and certification bodies, inspection agencies, as well as several state-level regulators. This is the first book to extensively describe the nature of standard-setting processes in India and the key agencies involved with this task, greatly clarifying the scope of market opportunities in the country. Lucid contributions from experienced practitioners and regulators with first-hand experience in formulating and advising on standards-related issues in international trade help disentangle the web of laws, regulations, operations, and functions of India’s standard setters in governmental, non-governmental, and industry contexts. The chapters describe how standards apply to such crucial trade aspects as the following: conformity assessment practice and procedure; environmental, ethical, social, and safety issues; import bans and import licensing; certification and labelling measures; mutual recognition agreements; food safety; and standardisation of the digital economy. The book is drafted throughout in an easy-to-read style, with numerous tables, flowcharts, and figures illustrating step-by-step compliance procedures. Informative annexes guide the reader to relevant agencies and identify their roles and responsibilities. This book provides a clear and concise guide to the operations, functions, and compliance and documentation requirements of India’s standard-setting and regulatory bodies across all sectors and products, and thus will serve as an unmatched guide for manufacturers, traders, and exporters operating in the Indian market or seeking to export to India. It will also serve as a useful Handbook to policymakers, academics, and researchers interested in understanding the role of standard-setting bodies in the field of international trade.

This publication provides the first comprehensive assessment of the relationship between trade standards and development priorities in Africa, with case studies of the use of international standards and capacity for compliance in five countries: Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda. It describes the economic context of trade standards in these countries, and examines the mechanisms by which standards and regulations are established and revised at local and international levels. It also considers the probable impact of new standards, regulations and related production/marketing practices in key industries.

This is one of the first books to draw together information and views about international control of food safety from around the world. Demands for safe food, against a background of increasing trade, are making international controls on food safety essential. Agreements on how to control the safety of food to meet these needs are now in place among the major trading blocks, particularly in Europe and in the USA, and more recently, in Australia. This book also describes progress in areas such as systematically reviewing risk from food; developing national infrastructures to enforce standards; and growing input from consumer groups and others, including economists, to the debate on how to set international food standards. Discussed in depth is the effort to achieve global standards for food safety under the auspices of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. There are chapters from world-leading experts on Codex, international control of radiological contamination, pesticides and veterinary drugs, and other chemical contaminants.

This monograph has two central purposes. The first is to provide a critical analysis of how governmental, private and hybrid product standards are regulated in the GATT/WTO legal framework. The second purpose is to explore – both positively and normatively – the impact that WTO disciplines may have on the composition, function and decision-making process of various standard-setting bodies through the lens of a series of selected case studies, including: the EU eco-labelling scheme; ISO standards; and private standards such as the FSC. The book analyses what role, if any, the WTO may play in making product standards applied in international trade embody not only technological superiority but also substantive and procedural fairness such as deliberation, representativeness, openness, transparency, due process and accountability. Whilst it has been long recognised that voluntary product standards drawn up by both governmental and non-governmental bodies can in practice create trade barriers as serious as mandatory governmental regulations, a rigorous and systematic inquiry into the boundary, relevance and impact of WTO disciplines on product standards is still lacking. Providing a lucid interpretation of the relevant WTO rules and cases on product standards, this book fills this significant gap in WTO law literature. Definitive and comprehensive, this is an essential reference work for scholars and practitioners alike.

Covers all aspects of food safety--science, regulation, and labeling requirements--integrating major developments in the fields of toxicology, analytical chemistry, microbiology, hygiene, and nutrition. Designed to be a reference that bridges the gaps between science, regulation and control of food safety. While this might have been a rather ambitious aim, in putting together this book, the editors have certainly succeeded in gathering a group of experts from industry, government agencies, academia, consumer groups and the media whose knowledge and expertise reflect the complex and multisectoral/multidisciplinary nature of food safety." ---Food Science and Technology

This book provides an economic perspective on the effects of food safety standards on international trade. Focusing on food safety regulation at an international level and private food safety standards, the authors use contemporary methodologies to analyze supply chain structures and organization as well as food-chain actors’ strategies. They also evaluate the effects of these on both consumer health and developing countries’ access to international markets. The book provides ideas, suggestions and policy recommendations for reconciling economic interests with consumer health, which will be of special interest to academics as well as to practitioners.

With contributions from over 30 international legal scholars, this topical Research Handbook on International Food Law provides a crucial and reflective examination of the rules, power dynamics, legal doctrines, societal norms, and frameworks that govern the modern global food system. The Research Handbook analyses the interlinkages between producers and consumers of food, as well as the environmental effects of the global food network and the repercussions on human health.

Freedom from hunger has been designated as a fundamental human right, and food safety is an intrinsic part of the concept of the right to adequate food. This publication, part of a series which consider ethical issues related to the work of the FAO, presents the discussions of a meeting of experts in Rome in September 2002 on a range of topics including: science as a basis for food safety policy, food safety management systems, risk analysis at national and international levels, and whether, in crisis situations, it is ethically acceptable for food safety standards be lower for food aid than for food trade.