Fall 2021

Introduction

Dear friends of the Resnick Center,

We’ve been very busy over the last year and are so happy to be back on campus this fall surrounded by energy and inspiration.

During this extraordinary year, the Resnick Center has experienced remarkable growth. We expanded our role as a leader in food law and policy scholarship while working to foment the academic discipline of food law and policy, nurture the next generation of food law and policy researchers and leaders, and convene stakeholders invested in bettering food systems. We continued our intellectual leadership in the field of food law and policy, worked extensively on scholarly publications, began several new major projects, significantly expanded the number of students working directly with the Center, and improved and expanded our communications and outreach infrastructure. Here, we bring you highlights of what we’ve been up to over the past 12 months.

Please reach out to us at resnickcenter@law.ucla.edu to let us know what you’ve been up to, for more information, to get involved, or to donate to our work.

And please follow us!

Twitter: @UCLAFoodLaw
Instagram: @uclafoodlawcenter
On Food Law blog: https://onfoodlaw.org/
Repast podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/repast/id1552995988

Thank you for your support, and best wishes,

Michael Roberts and Diana Winters

Projects & Initiatives

Global Best Practices Project

We are excited to announce that in 2021 the Center launched a seminal project on global best practices in food regulation, funded by the Seeding the Future Family Foundation, founded by Bernhard Van Lengerich. Bernhard Van Lengerich is a member of the Resnick Center’s Outside Advisory Board. In spring 2021, the Center hired Melissa Shapiro, a former instructor in the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (bio below), to direct the project. The project will produce a report and an interactive website analyzing best practices in food regulation from countries around the world. By identifying and annotating model legislative and regulatory approaches in the food space, this project will promote cooperation and sharing amongst governments and stakeholders, identify gaps in the regulation of serious food issues that need further attention, and inspire regulatory innovation and novel approaches.

Juice Drinks Labeling Initiative

Juice drinks often aren’t what they seem! This is the premise behind our Juice Drinks Labeling Initiative initiated in collaboration with public health scholars and leading experts in science, law, and policy. The focus of the initiative is a citizen petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requesting changes in the labeling of juice drinks to empower parents and consumers to make better health decisions. The initiative also fosters cohesive working relationships between nutritional science researchers and legal and policy advocates. Healthy Eating Research (HER) and the Feed the Truth nonprofit organization contributed seed funding which aided student research in support of the initiative. With research concluding in the fall, we have begun drafting the petition, which has a strong social justice component.

Publications

Research Handbook on International Food Law

Michael Roberts is editing a research handbook on international food law to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2022. Approximately 30 scholars from law schools and leading institutions are contributing chapters to the book. A broad range of topics will be covered in the book drawn from the development of food law and from current important issues in the regulation of food.

FAO Volume: Law and Governance

Michael Roberts is contributing a volume to the Edward Elgar law and governance series on the history of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The book, forthcoming in 2022, discusses the historical beginnings of the FAO, the legal and governance structure of the FAO, and the role of the FAO within the international regulation of food.

Food Law in the United States

Michael Roberts and Diana Winters are revising Roberts’s seminal food law treatise Food Law in the United States for a second edition for Cambridge University Press, to be published in 2023.

Report to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): Regulatory and governance strategies to counter food fraud

We formed a partnership with the FAO in June 2019 on a series of research and advisory initiatives, and this year, Michael Roberts and the FAO Legal Department are co-drafting a major report on food fraud for the FAO Legal Department to be presented to FAO member countries. The report will consist of international legal strategies to regulate food fraud. It is anticipated that the report will be published this year.

Research Fellows, Affiliates & Assistants

Research Assistants

We were delighted to work with five research assistants over the summer on important projects including looking at proposed legislation regarding water rates and community gardens, researching what “nutritionally adequate” means in regard to prison food, and writing recommendations for the farm bill. Several of our research assistants remain with the Center for the fall semester.

Research Affiliates

Left to right: Evan Graham Arango, Jabari Brown, Brian Fink, and Beth Kent

We are also happy that we have been able to maintain connections with law school graduates working in food law and policy through their employment or extracurricularly. Our Research Affiliate program fosters these connections. Affiliates meet with Center leadership bimonthly to discuss current projects and possibilities for collaboration with the Center.

This year’s research affiliates include: Evan Graham Arango, UCLA Law ’20, owner and founder of Ojai Roots, a small-scale regenerative farm; Jabari Brown, University of Oregon Law, who works on various projects in food policy to promote basic needs policy, inclusive equity, and data-based analysis; Brian Fink, UCLA Law, an associate attorney at Danow, McMullan & Panoff in New York City, where he focuses his practice on the unique challenges of the food and beverage industries; and Beth Kent, UCLA Law, an Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law for 2020-2022. The Research Affiliates are pictured above, left to right: Evan Graham Arango, Jabari Brown, Brian Fink, and Beth Kent.

Rita Mansuryan (UCLA Law ’18), an Associate at Faegre Drinker, and a member of the Resnick Center’s Outside Advisory Board, acts as a liaison between the board and the affiliates.

Melissa Shapiro

Melissa Shapiro, a former instructor in the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, is the Center’s International Food Law Fellow and will direct the Global Best Practices Project. Melissa has extensive experience working on policy related to international food systems; among other things she served as a consultant to the Special Rapporteur on the right to food at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Attorney-Advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency. You can reach Melissa at shapirom@law.ucla.edu.

Media Communications

Podcast (Repast)

Big news for your food law and policy listening pleasure! We started a monthly podcast series, Repast, where Michael and Diana interview thought leaders in the field of food law and policy to discuss past achievements, current developments, and future challenges. Thus far, the podcast has covered topics including: the dangerous levels of sodium in the American diet, Senator Tom Harkin’s significant impact on food policy; a discussion with the founder of the Center for Good Food Purchasing; conversations with the President and CEO of Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) on reforming food systems; the health harms of processed foods; agribusiness innovation; and immigration enforcement in meatpacking plants. Repast was named one of the top ten food and agriculture law podcasts by Feedspot.

Other Communications (Blog, Twitter, IG)

We also started an Instagram account (@uclafoodlawcenter) where we post food law news, Resnick Center updates, podcast highlights, and more. Check us out there, on Twitter (@UCLAFoodLaw), and at our blog, On Food Law (onfoodlaw.org)!

Other News

Courses

Left to right: David Biderman and Tommy Tobin

The Center offered four courses and one independent research project to UCLA Law students during the 2020-21 academic year. These courses offered students an opportunity to explore food law issues through various lenses focusing on legal research, litigation, regulatory enforcement, international scholarship, and intensive experiential learning with real clients.

These courses included: Introduction to Food Law and Policy (Fall 2020) taught by Michael Roberts; Food Litigation: Consumer Protection, Regulation, and Class Actions (Spring 2021) taught by David Biderman and Tommy Tobin; Modes of Legal Inquiry: Emerging Scholarship in International Food Law (Spring 2021) taught by Michael Roberts; the Food Law & Policy Clinic (Spring 2021) taught by Allison Korn; and Independent Research supervised by Michael Roberts. Picture above, left to right: David Biderman and Tommy Tobin.

Selected Conferences and Events

From fall 2020 to summer 2021, we participated in a number of outside virtual speaking events with universities, institutes, non-profit organizations, and other organizations involved in food law and policy issues. Some of these are listed here:

In fall 2020, Michael Roberts spoke and moderated a panel at a FDLI conference on legal challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic; spoke at a Honey Association Conference; discussed legal conflicts of interest in nutrition research at the Obesity Week conference; and spoke on food security at Howard Law School’s World Food Law Institute. He also spoke internationally-- at Renmin University of China’s Collaborative Innovation Centre for Food Safety Governance. And for the Italian Food Law Association on legal issues arising from Covid-19.

In October 2020, Diana Winters spoke on a panel for the Food Law Society at Duke Law School.

In spring 2021, Michael Roberts moderated a panel for UCLA Law’s Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs; spoke on global food security at the Harkin Institute’s Food is Medicine conference; and guest lectured at the University of Arkansas at the invitation of the Dean of the Law School on history of the U.S. Supreme Court on Coca-Cola vs. Pom Wonderful case.

He also spoke at and moderated a panel at the Food Tank’s conference on food security in London; spoke at UC Davis’ Honey and Pollination Center’s Honey Adulteration Seminar; and was a guest on Bruker’s Food Authenticity podcast.

Deputy Director Hired

Last but not least, Diana Winters, who was the part-time Assistant Director of the Center, joined the Center full time as its Deputy Director. Prior to joining the Center, Diana was a Professor of law at Indiana University McKinney School of Law, a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Law and an Assistant Solicitor General at the New York Attorney General’s Office.

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Read the On Food Law Blog