Public and Private Enforcement in European Union Food Law

Abstract

What type of enforcement is the most effective to punish violations of food law or to prevent them from occurring in the first place? This article examines the question of which mix of private and public enforcement exists in European Union (EU) food law and whether this mix corresponds to the recommendations of existing social science research. Based on this research, we contend that EU-determined enforcement mechanisms differ in effectiveness across Member States. New technologies have the potential to stimulate a novel mix of public and private enforcement tools at the EU and national levels.

COP-27: A great opportunity to address the double crisis of food security and climate change–and for the EU to re-align its farm to fork strategy

“…See conventional farming (Smith et al, 2019;Purnhagen and Wesseler, 2020;Connor, 2021). Moreover, they point at the ongoing regulatory uncertainty surrounding the regulation of gene-editing.…”

“…This problem occurs because the surface required to produce the same amount of food for European consumers will have to increase significantly elsewhere as domestic agricultural productivity declines due to the expected lower TFP. The ensuing land use change outside Europe (through more food imports) is likely to have a significant negative impact on climate change mitigation, food security and biodiversity (Purnhagen and Wesseler, 2020). Yet, these potential negative side effects do not find any mention in most of the official sustainability assessments of the f2f strategy, even though the risks of such extensification strategies are well-documented.…”