This study is intended, first, to describe and analyze the channels of distribution for food products in the State of Kuwait, second, to pinpoint the problems that exist in the food-distribution system, and, third, to make specific recommendations for the alleviation of the problems. Consistent with the objectives of the study and based on the description and analysis of the food-distribution system in the country, it is concluded in the study that Kuwait depends on imports for virtually all of its food; the government plays a major role in the food-distribution system; and the majority of food wholesaling and retailing establishments are small, inefficient, and lack modern marketing and physical distribution techniques. Product shortages and rising food prices plague the food-distribution system in the country. Also, the findings indicate that consumers in Kuwait are generally ignorant and uninformed in the areas of food nutrition and food shopping, and the lack of standardization and grading of food products makes the shopping task of the consumer more difficult.

The detrimental consequences associated with industrial models of food production are becoming more difficult to ignore. In response, one dominant approach to mitigating the myriad environmental, social, and ethical harms relating to food has sought to increase the efficiency of agricultural outputs through scientific and technological innovation. Although technology certainly has some role to play in any vision of a sustainable future, technocratic approaches to problem solving are insufficient—and arguably inappropriate—for addressing many of the kinds of complex challenges that we face today. There are recent indications that both agri-food law and policy and innovation policy are being taken more seriously in Canada, which creates an opportunity to reflect more deliberately on their ends and means. This dissertation explores the topic of how laws, policies, and other tools of governance can work to better align technological innovations in the agri-food sector with shared environmental goals and ethical aspirations. Taking a critical legal perspective closely informed by feminist insights and the work of existing, analogous justice movements, I examine several interlinkages between technology, law, the environment, and society to evaluate some of the failings of existing approaches to food systems transformation and to offer a contribution to the conversation about alternative pathways. Given the context-specific nature of food systems and food systems governance, my focus is primarily on Canada, but the universal importance of food in a globalized world renders some comparative and transnational discussion unavoidable. I use case studies and discourse analysis to demonstrate that, when considered through a justice-oriented lens, several of the new and emerging technologies being championed in the agri-food sector may not be as beneficial as their proponents claim. Instead, they may serve to retrench injustice and cement existing, exploitative power structures, making them more difficult to challenge and change later down the line. Thus, if technologies are to serve public instead of private interests in the ways they are incentivized, designed, regulated, and used, we will need to see broad systemic and structural reforms informed by thoughtful shifts in our values and priorities, rather than merely reactive adjustments to our policies and practices. Though this undertaking will be difficult, it is not impossible; this dissertation offers one way to facilitate the process of seeding change for environmental sustainability and technological justice.

Les échanges commerciaux de denrées alimentaires entre l'Union européenne et les Etats Subsahariens sont en constante augmentation et sont encadrés par les grands principes du droit alimentaire européen, composante du droit de la consommation. Ces grands principes énoncent des règles d'information des consommateurs, de sécurité, de conformité et de traçabilité des produits alimentaires qui doivent être respectés par toutes les parties prenantes du secteur agroalimentaire et des ses filières. C'est donc une masse importante de règles internationales, communautaires européennes qui se combinent aux textes nationaux. Les exportateurs/importateurs au sein de la Communauté, et les professionnels des pays tiers, mettent en œuvre ces règles dans les contrats de vente internationales des denrées. Les problèmes de santé et de sécurité sont posés par les consommateurs inquiets de leur protection. Mais les producteurs seront attentifs à l'évolution des règles qui protègent les consommateurs car elles conditionnent les activités de production, de transformation de transport, de stockage et de commercialisation. Certes, l'Afrique subsaharienne occupe une place faible dans le commerce mondial, mais son importance dans les échanges avec le continent européen, reste un facteur d'encouragement de la production des produits africains commercialisables. A cet effet, les pays subsahariens ne peuvent plus se contenter d'une réglementation locale, inadaptée, bien lacunaire et peu effective, au regard de l'importance des solutions aux questions sanitaires alimentaires dans le cadre du commerce mondial. D'ailleurs les importateurs européens imposent, contractuellement, à leurs partenaires africains le respect des impératifs sanitaires européens sans lesquels ils ne pourraient mettre les aliments importés en circulation en Europe. La thèse met en évidence un impératif de modernisation des instruments juridiques et institutionnels en Afrique subsaharienne. La place que prennent désormais les normes, quelles qu'en soient les différentes variantes est, à cet égard, très instructive. Les normes permettent aux producteurs et exportateurs des pays en développement de raccourcir les opérations complexes de compréhension des textes impératifs et des principes techniques et managériaux très modernes. / Food trade between EU and Sub-Saharans, are permanently increasing. This trade is surrounded by some food Law major principles, part of consumer Law. These main principles, deal with: safety, information, conformity, traceability, of food stuffs which have to be respected by all stakeholders in the agro-food business. This huge amount of legal instruments (international, European,) has to be mixed with the local regulations. These rules are used in the frame of the international contracts of importing food. Health and safety questions are a strong demand from consumers. But producers are paying much attention to the evolution of this corpus of rules of consumer protection, as far as they influence production, transformation, transport, storage, and distribution .Of course sub,-Saharan countries occupy a small part of international food trade, but it remains an important partner of EU, and this is an important encouragement mean to develop African production of foodstuffs. African countries cannot anymore apply their local and obsolete regulations, unefficient and lacking with global trade. In fact, European importers stress, by the terms of their contracts, imposed to the African partners, to respecting European sanitary rules. Otherwise they could not put the imported goods into circulation on the EU market. The thesis shows the necessity to up to date legal instruments in Africa . In particular the standards (official and private standards) will be very efficient for helping producers and exporters from developing countries to understand the constraints of mandatory rules, and their technical consequences in terms of modern production and management processes.

D. Tech. Environmental Health, Tshwane University of Technology, 2012. / Implementation of existing meat hygiene legislation can be costly to the game farm owner in terms of slaughter facilities and human resources. This can consequently force farmers and processors to operate outside of the law when delivering game meat to the market. In answer to this a Game Meat Scheme was negotiated between Wildlife Ranching South Africa, represented by the researcher and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Nevertheless, the Game Meat Scheme only offers a 5 year period of grace for legal compliance for game farmers producing for the local meat market. Concerns of Wildlife Ranching South Africa on the implementation of such and other legal procedures on game farms motivated the comparative research on regulated and non-regulated game carcasses. Dependent and independent variables were researched to compare game carcasses intended for the export market (aspiring to strict requirements), and game carcasses intended for the local market (no control measures). The swabbing sampling technique used by the researcher was verified against the excision method (used by the export market). The results of this study have further led to a proposed innovation in the testing and verification of current legislation culminating in the Game Meat scheme and a new Game Meat Guide that could lead to the development of practical guidelines for the hunting process on the farm.

This thesis examines the interplay between the effects of climate change and human rights. It seeks to interrogate the contribution of human rights in addressing the effects of climate change on the enjoyment of the right to food in Kenya. Climate change has been recognised as a human rights issue. Despite this acknowledgement, many states are yet to deal with climate change as a growing threat to the realisation of human rights. The situation is made worse by the glacial pace in securing a binding legal agreement to tackle climate change. The thesis also reveals that despite their seemingly disparate and disconnected nature, both the human rights and climate change regimes seek to achieve the same goal albeit in different ways. The thesis argues that a considerable portion of the Kenyan population has not been able to enjoy the right to food as a result of droughts and floods. It adopts the view that, with the effects of climate change being evident, the frequency and magnitude of droughts and floods has increased with far reaching consequences on the right to food. Measures by the Kenyan government to address the food situation have always been knee jerk and inadequate in nature. This is despite the fact that Kenya is a signatory to a number of human rights instruments that deal with the right to food. With the promulgation of a new Constitution with a justiciable right to food, there is a need for the Kenyan government to meet its human rights obligations. This thesis concludes by suggesting ways in which the right to food can be applied in order to address some of the effects of climate change. It argues that by adopting a human rights approach to the right to food, the State will have to adopt measures that take into consideration the impacts of climate change. Furthermore, the State is under an obligation to engage in activities that will not contribute to climate change and negatively affect the right.

MPH / Department of Public Health

Plant-based meat (PBM) fulfills the criteria set by the European Union regulations for the product to be sold in the EU and is currently a highly consumed conventional meat substitute in the region. Whereas, cell-based meat (CBM), as of July 2023, does not fulfill the criteria set by the EU regulations for the product to be legally sold in the EU. This is due to CBM companies not submitting the required Novel Food application to EFSA to recieve market approval. Therefore, CBM is currently not legally sold in the EU and not consumed in the region. This thesis analyzes the impact of EU regulations and consumer behavior, and how these factors affect the growth of the PBM and CBM markets. The restriction of the thesis, the PBM and CBM markets, has been chosen due to them being the primary forms of alternative proteins that are a more sustainable choice to conventional meat. The intention of the thesis is to bring attention to the interplay between law and business, and the implications of their interconnectedness. The thesis is written with the aspiration to answer the question; to what extent have EU regulations and consumer behavior affected the expansion of the plant and cell-based meat markets? To this end, we began with determining if the legal criteria of the regulatory framework applicable to PBM and CBM constitute equal regulatory conditions for the markets to expand in the EU. The regulatory framework referred to in the thesis is restricted to the primary legislations applicable to alternative proteins, which are the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) Regulation (EU) No 1829/2003, Novel Food Regulation (EU) 2015/2283, EU Food Law Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, Food Information to Consumers Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, and EU labeling requirements. We then conducted a collection of previous research on both the PBM and CBM markets restricted to sustainability, retail market, consumer behavior, financial investment, development, and production processes and costs. Thereafter, we compared the previous research and the aforementioned EU regulations to conclude the impacts of the regulations and the differences in the legal application between PBM and CBM. We also conclude how consumer behavior impacts the growth of a market in addition to the regulatory requirements, and showcase their combined effects on the market. The results suggested that compliance with EU regulations determines if the products are authorized to be legally sold in the EU while consumer behavior influences market acceptance and the extent of growth. The key regulatory difference affecting the ability of CBM to comply and experience similar growth to PBM is the Novel Food Regulation, due to it categorizing cell-based products as novel foods. As of May 2023, no companies in the EU have submitted a Novel Food application to EFSA for CBM.

The topic of this diploma thesis is the Consumer protection in the food supplements area. The work has been devided into three parts. The first part is devoted to the overview about categorization of the products with the impact on health. This part of this work also includes the elementary terms, which are: food, food supplements, medicinal products, cosmetics products and medical devices. The second chapter is devoted to the matter of food supplements as such. The third chapter deals with the terms health and nutrition claims. The last chapter includes the survey between the consumers of the food suplements and also the survey between the pharmacies.

L’obiettivo del presente lavoro di ricerca è quello di porre in luce la cosiddetta “dimensione relazionale” dell’informazione fornita ai consumatori di alimenti tramite l’etichettatura nutrizionale e salutistica, intesa quale strumento normativo per l’attuazione delle politiche nutrizionali perseguite dall'Unione Europea. Il presente scritto analizza come le funzioni dell’etichettatura alimentare siano mutate durante i decenni, a partire dalla fine degli anni settanta del secolo scorso, quando essa era sì concepita come strumento informativo, ma il cui scopo principale rimaneva tuttavia quello di appianare le varie difformità legislative o regolamentari esistenti tra i vari Stati Membri – potendo queste rappresentare un ostacolo alla creazione di un mercato comune – sino ai giorni nostri, che vedono l’etichetta come una protagonista attiva in seno ad un più ampio programma di politica nutrizionale; più precisamente, attraverso un’adeguata etichettatura alimentare, le istituzioni dell’Unione Europea ambiscono a plasmare le abitudini alimentari dei consumatori, indirizzandoli verso percorsi nutrizionali più salutari. In tale contesto, il Regolamento sulle indicazioni nutrizionali e sulla salute fornite sugli alimenti rappresenta un ambizioso e, al tempo stesso, controverso tassello del diritto alimentare europeo, le cui premesse ispiratrici erano indubbiamente lodevoli, ma che è stato vittima, successivamente, di un’attuazione che ha generato notevole scontento ed incertezza sia tra i consumatori che nell'industria, al punto tale che da più parti si nutrono dubbi in merito alla sua efficacia e validità. Il presente lavoro di ricerca ambisce quindi a fornire una profonda analisi del Regolamento sulle indicazioni nutrizionali e sulla salute, offrendo una panoramica di esso in chiave storica, sociale, ed economica, imprescindibile al fine di una corretta e completa comprensione delle scelte normative e delle loro implicazioni di mercato. In ossequio a tale intento, in ogni apertura di paragrafo è offerto un inquadramento di taglio storico-normativo, mentre, in conclusione, si tenta di fornire qualche spunto critico da cui potrebbe, o avrebbe potuto, derivare una migliore attuazione del Regolamento. Dopo una breve introduzione, la ricerca entra nel suo vivo attraverso l’analisi di ogni aspetto del Regolamento (CE) n. 1924/2006, soffermandosi, in particolar modo, su quello che è l’aspetto cruciale e problematico relativo alla sua attuazione: il ruolo della scienza e, più precisamente, la valutazione circa la fondatezza scientifica dei claims, procedimento che, in assenza di chiare definizioni normative ed operative, è di fatto rimesso alla discrezionalità interpretativa dell’EFSA, avallata (implicitamente o esplicitamente) dalla Commissione Europea e dalla Corte di Giustizia dell’Unione Europea, generando così reazioni critiche tra pratici ed accademici che accusano una illegittima applicazione del principio di precauzione in un ambito che gli è estraneo, vale a dire quello dell’informazione alimentare al consumatore finale. Il lavoro prosegue poi con una riflessione sull'esito finale di un siffatto adagiamento sul processo di validazione scientifica condotto dall’EFSA, che ha ridotto la più parte della conoscenza nutrizionale a poco più di 200 indicazioni sulla salute autorizzate, la cui formulazione letterale, tra l’altro, si dubita assai possa essere agevolmente compresa dal cosiddetto consumatore medio. Inoltre, il Regolamento lascia irrisolti e aperte molti dilemmi e questioni, che devono urgentemente trovare un positivo interessamento al fine di non vanificare gli apprezzabili sforzi di spinta alla ricerca innovativa e di garanzia di una leale ed effettiva concorrenza nell'industria alimentare; il riferimento corre, tra gli altri, ai cosiddetti “claims botanici” ed ai “probiotici”, in relazione ai quali è ad oggi impedito reclamizzare in etichetta un’indicazione salutistica, sull’assunto per cui non è ancora stato raggiunto un livello accettabile di consenso scientifico relativamente alla loro sicurezza d’uso ed efficacia. Di conseguenza, se lo stato dell’arte è connotato da un simile proibizionismo, gli operatori del settore alimentare si trovano nella situazione di dover ricorrere a diverse strategie commerciali, quali l’utilizzo di claims suggestivi che, proposti attraverso messaggi non testuali, come nel caso del food design, si rivelano cionondimeno in grado di veicolare un messaggio salutistico, senza però la soggezione allo stretto rigore scientifico richiesto dall’EFSA. Infine, il presente lavoro, seppur prevalentemente rivolto alla descrizione dello scenario regolativo europeo, non dimentica di fornire una utile prospettiva del tema anche in chiave comparata, spaziando dalle linee guida predisposte dal Codex Alimentarius agli accordi vigenti in ambito OMC applicabili all’etichettatura degli alimenti, alimentando, per l’appunto, perplessità circa la compatibilità del Regolamento (CE) n° 1924/2006 con le obbligazioni gravanti sull’Unione Europea imposte dalla sua appartenenza al WTO. / The topic of the present research is to highlight the relational dimension of the information provided to consumers via food labelling, intended as a legal tool for the implementation of the nutrition policy carried out by the EU institutions since the establishment of the European Economic Community. The present work analyses how the function of food labelling has changed during the decades, since the late Seventies of the past century, when it was merely conceived as a mean of information whose main purpose was the harmonisation of the different national legislations, which could constitute an unnecessary obstacle to the realization of the common internal market, to the most recent days, when food labelling is thought as a tool of active nutrition policy; more precisely, through an adequate labelling, the EU institutions try to shape consumers’ behaviours, driving them toward a healthier eating. In this regulatory scenario, the Regulation on Nutrition and Health Claims made on foods is an ambitious and controversial piece of European food law, whose premises were undoubtedly laudable, but which has been during the years (partially) implemented in a manner which has caused much more discontent and confusion among both consumers and manufacturers, so that nowadays many doubts are still arising for what concerns its efficacy and its validity. This research represents a deep analysis of the Regulation on Nutrition and Health Claims, also taken into consideration from the historical, sociological, and economic perspective, which must be necessarily intertwined for a complete and critical comprehension of the legal framework and its implications for the various stakeholders. For this reason, each paragraph begins with a sort of normative background, and concludes with a critical analysis of the existing situation, providing some hints for a better implementation of the NHCR. After a brief introduction, the core of the research is completely and deeply focused on each and every aspect of the Regulation, with a central part which takes into consideration the very crucial aspect of its partial and problematic ongoing implementation: the role of science and, more precisely, the requirement of the scientific substantiation of the claims, whose assessment is demanded to the EFSA that, in the absence of definitions and clear guidelines on how to conduct such an evaluation, has de facto given its personal interpretation of the normative provisions of the Regulation, on which also the Commission and the European Court of Justice (implicitly or explicitly) rely, causing discontent among operators and legal scholars who see this as an illegitimate application of the precautionary principle to the field of food information, and a possible departure from the traditional categories of the risk assessment, risk management, and legal interpretation. The analysis proceeds then by criticizing the results of the total reliance on the scientific evaluation carried out by the EFSA, which reduced most of the knowledge about nutrition science in few more than 200 approved health claims, whose wording is probably incomprehensible for the average consumer. Moreover, there are also many other open issues in the Regulation on Nutrition and Health Claims which need to be urgently addressed in order not to vanish the laudable purpose of stimulating innovation and competition in the food sector, namely the botanical claims and probiotics, which are now prevented from bearing health claims on the consideration that a complete scientific consensus about their safety and efficacy has not yet been reached. But if this is the largely prohibitive state of the art, manufacturers are of course encouraged to find different escape routes, one of which is recurring to implied health claims, adopted through non-textual messages, or, to rephrase, through a smart food design, which can convey the same representation of healthiness without being subject to the strict scientific boundaries standardised by the EFSA. In addition, and as a conclusion, the present work, although mainly focused on the European Union regulatory environment, tries to give a comparative view on what the international arena offers on the topic, from the Codex Alimentarius Commission to the various WTO Agreements pertaining to food labelling, instilling doubts about the NHCR compatibility with the obligations that the EU must fulfil in the international trade law relations.

La tesi si incentra sull’applicazione del diritto europeo in materia alimentare. L’elaborato prende il via dall’analisi degli obiettivi fondamentali e degli strumenti principali del diritto alimentare, del suo sviluppo storico e delle questioni che ha affrontato. L’applicazione del diritto alimentare è studiata esaminando il sistema dei controlli nell’Unione europea e la correlata implementazione sia da parte degli Operatori del settore alimentare sia da parte delle Autorità Competenti in due Stati membri (Italia e Olanda). Vengono, altresì, esaminati casi pratici in cui sono state rintracciate problematiche nell’applicazione del diritto alimentare o che hanno dimostrato le debolezze del sistema nel gestire le varie violazioni attinenti gli alimenti. Lo studio intende inoltre dimostrare le carenze del sistema normativo sviluppando un concetto teoretico quale quello delle violazioni dovute al “fattore umano” e del loro impatto sugli interessi economici dei consumatori. La tesi, quindi, si focalizza sugli strumenti più idonei alla gestione di violazioni di questa tipologia esaminando la legislazione recentemente adottata e prendendo in considerazione, altresì, le possibili soluzioni che possono derivare dai differenti approcci degli Stati membri e l’opportunità di utilizzare, parallelamente a regole ed attività svolte dalle Autorità competenti, standard privati. / The thesis analyses enforcement of EU food law. The analysis starts by concentrating on the EU Food Law central objectives and basic tools, its historical development and the issues it has aimed to face. Food Law Enforcement is analysed by examining food control systems in the European Union and their implementation by Food Business Operators as well as by the Competent Authorities in two Member States (Italy and The Netherlands). Cases are scrutinised where problems of enforcement or weaknesses of the system have come to light in dealing with various possible violations which concern food. The dissertation aims to show the shortcomings of the legal system and to contribute to solving them by developing a theoretical concept: that of behavioural infringements due to the human factor and of their impact on consumer economic interests. The dissertation, therefore, focuses on the most suitable instruments in dealing with these infringements by examining the newly adopted legislation and by looking at what can be learnt from different approaches chosen in the two Member States studies, including that of combining the Competent Authorities rules and activities to those of Private schemes.