Resnick Program for Food Law & Policy Newsletter

Clinic Pilot Concludes Successfully

The new Food Law and Policy Clinic enjoyed a successful first semester, where students developed the skills and understanding necessary to effectuate systemic reforms and worked on teams with local organizations addressing critical issues impacting our modern food system.

 

In partnership with a national animal advocacy group, Compassion Over Killing, students identified ways in which California’s public schools can introduce more plant-based protein sources in their school meals programs. Students identified key barriers, potential solutions, and found helpful local and state resources for school districts interested in pursuing more meat alternative options. 

 

Students also collaborated with Food Forward, a local non-profit organization that recovers surplus produce and distributes it to more than 100K families in Southern California who do not have regular access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Food Forward asked students to determine potential legal, policy, and ethical issues that may hinder the organization’s efforts to expand and to outline ways in which the organization (and others like it) can establish effective and supportive partnerships with local innovators and startups that use recovered food to generate income.

Two New Articles

The Resnick Program is thrilled to announce the recent publication of two articles authored by Academic Fellow Emilie Aguirre. Aguirre, whose research and publications focus on the intersection of food and public health law, discusses in both articles the increasingly problematic use of antibiotics in food-producing animals.

 

The vast majority of antibiotics sold in the United States each year—an estimated 70 to 80 percent—are administered at routine, low doses to animals raised for human consumption. This practice contributes to antibiotic resistance and is helping lead us toward a “post-antibiotic world” in which antibiotics that once treated basic infections are rendered ineffective. 

 

Contagion Without Relief is an article published in the UCLA Law Review that proposes a democratic experimentalist approach to more effectively regulate antibiotics use in the United States. An International Model for Antibiotics Regulation, published in the most recent Food and Drug Law Journal, offers a framework for tackling this problem globally.

'Food Law in the United States' Book Review

“We are clearly on the cusp of an era of change…In the meantime, Roberts’ treatise is an indispensable roadmap for serious study and reflection” writes Joseph Page, Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University Law Center.

 

Professor Page’s book review, published in the Food and Drug Law Journal, gives an overview and very favorable assessment of Resnick Program Executive Director Michael Roberts’s 2016 seminal treatise Food Law in the United States. Read the review and learn more about the book here. A Chinese translation of the treatise is expected by the end of the summer.

Our Summer Plans

• Clinical Director Allison Korn is excited to be a Facilitator for the 2017 Stone Barns Exchange Fellowship at the prestigious Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. The Stone Barns Exchange Fellows hail from across the US and gather for a 3-week residency throughout the month of July to learn, connect, and work together to accelerate food systems change.

 

• The Resnick Program bids adieu to our Academic Fellow Emilie Aguirre as she heads to Harvard to pursue a PhD in Health Policy and Management. At Harvard, Emilie will continue her research on the intersections of health, food systems, food companies, and innovation. Goodbye for now, but not for long as Emilie will be a featured presenter at several of our upcoming events and a driving force in the world of food law and policy. 

 

• Brian Fink, a recent UCLA Law School graduate (‘17) and former Resnick Program Summer Fellow, heads to Yale Law School as their inaugural Farm and Food Legal Fellow. Congratulations Brian on this exciting new chapter! We are excited to see you shape the field of food law and policy for years to come.

Advising Food Law in China

Recently, two new proposed rules in China have led to further opportunities for the Resnick Program to contribute to the development of food law in China.

 

The first rule involves the regulation of food fraud. As a leader in addressing the problem of food fraud with the publication of a White Paper, The Pursuit of Food Authenticity: Recommended Legal & Policy Strategies to Eradicate Economically Motivated Adulteration (Food Fraud), the Resnick Program organized a roundtable in Beijing in May 2017 to address the proposed new food fraud rule. Senior government officials from the China FDA, along with law professors from China University of Political Science and Law, as well as other leading law schools in China, participated in the roundtable, discussing the proposed language in the new rule. The Resnick Program Executive Director Michael T. Roberts was a keynote speaker for the roundtable and took an active role in the discussion. 

The second emerging rule in China involves the regulation of food safety of edible agricultural products before they get to market. In July Michael Roberts was invited by the sponsor of a series of roundtables – the Yale Law School Paul Tsai China Center – to be the lead academic presenter. Michael Roberts presented a comparative analysis of the US and China regulations as they pertain to edible agricultural products. The roundtables were held in Beijing, Wenzhou, and Shenzhen.

Executive Director to Join National Advisory Committee

Over the past few months Resnick Program Executive Director Michael T. Roberts has served on the Harkin Institute’s Wellness & Nutrition Core Advisory Committee. His expertise has helped guide the committee carve out the Institutes future research topics, such as food subsidies, school nutrition, and how diets affect climate change. Now, he joins as a permanent member of the Wellness Nutrition National Advisory Committee to oversee the long-term research taking place within the three areas the core advisory committee selected.

 

Save the Date(s)!

Friday, October 13th --

4th Annual Harvard-UCLA Food Law and Policy Conference in Cambridge, MA. Registration coming soon. 

 

Wednesday, October 25th --

SSEW Symposium 2017, hosted by the Resnick Program at UCLA. Registration coming soon. 

 

Friday-Sunday, November 17-19th --

Student Food Law Leadership Summit hosted by the Resnick Program at UCLA.