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Determining a Science-based Food Safety Objective/Appropriate Level of Protection for Application in Developing Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2017

Dasep WAHIDIN  and
Kai P PURNHAGEN
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Abstract

When determining the Appropriate Level of Protection (ALOP) in food safety law, developed countries rely on the Food Safety Objective (FSO) to meet the requirements of World Trade Organization (WTO) law and to provide a high level of protection based on insights from food safety science. Implementing an FSO/ALOP is resource-intensive and costly. Developing countries who would like to provide similar levels of protection are restricted by limited resources and often face difficulties implementing such an FSO-based ALOP. As a consequence, developing countries may base their ALOP on other legally acceptable reasons, which are non-scientific and less effective. We illustrate a less resource-intensive way to implement the FSO in the ALOP, which enables developing countries to design an ALOP that is based on food safety science. Depending on the resources available in the respective country, we map different possibilities to determine a science-based FSO/ALOP concept for developing countries, which also takes into account the requirements of WTO law.

Type
Articles
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 8 , Special Issue 2: Special Issue on the Implementation in Europe of the WHO Recommendations on Food Marketing to Children , June 2017 , pp. 403 - 413
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 

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Footnotes

*

Law and Governance Group, Wageningen University and Research, Hollandseweg 1, PO Box 8130, 6700 EW, Wageningen, The Netherlands; National Agency of Drug and Food Control of Indonesia (NADFC), Percetakan Negara, 23, 10560, Jakarta, Indonesia.

**

Law and Governance Group, Wageningen University and Research, Hollandseweg 1, PO Box 8130, 6700 EW, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

References

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41 Gkogka and others, supra note 34.

42 ICMSF, supra note 29.

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47 RMP is an Information Communication Technology (ICT) base program. The program uses web-based software. The participant (food manufacturer) can upload RMP documents and the documents are saved in a database. The authority can verify the documents and provide a real time progress of the process online. Indonesia has been implementing this system since 2015. NADFC, “Risk Management Program” (2016), available at <http://pmr.pom.go.id/index.php> (accessed 30 March 2017).

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50 This is recognised in numerous provisions in WTO law, most prominently in GATT, Part IV on Trade and Development.