Agency Commons^™

Labeling Of Credence Attributes In Livestock Production: Verifying Attributes Which Are More Than "Meet The Eye", Nicole J. Olynk, Christopher A. Wolf, Glynn T. Tonsor

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Americans are increasingly sensitive to the conditions under which the foods they purchase and consume are produced. It is becoming commonplace for consumers to incorporate perceived environmental impacts, animal welfare concerns, and other process attributes into food purchase decisions. Increased interest in production practices and technologies employed in food production has been seen in the U.S. specifically concerning irradiation, antibiotics, and hormone and pesticide use. Perhaps one of the most controversial technologies employed in food production today is the use of genetic engineering. Not surprisingly, consumers are particularly sensitive about practices employed or technologies used in foods produced specifically for …

A Healthy Diet Of Preemption: The Power Of The Fda And The Battle Over Restricting High Fructose Corn Syrup From Food And Beverages Labeled 'Natural', Adam C. Schlosser

Journal of Food Law & Policy

America is unhealthy. America faces an obesity epidemic. The food consumed by Americans is making them fat. Americans, bombarded every single day by negative headlines like these, are becoming more and more health conscious. This newfound commitment to health is reflected in the food and beverages Americans purchase.

European Union Food Law Update, Emilie H. Leibovitch

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The year 2009 was chosen to be the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. Every year, the European Union selects a theme for a campaign targeted at raising awareness on a particular matter. Creativity and innovation are to be emphasized. Although skeptics will find plenty to demonstrate these two words ought to be taken with a grain of salt, one thing is certain: 2009 is the year of "New". In June 2009, European Union citizens will elect a new European Parliament, and in November 2009, a new European Commission will be appointed. In addition, the application of the Treaty of …

United States Food Law Update: Pasteurized Almonds And Country Of Origin Labeling, A. Bryan Endres

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The last six months of 2008 found the nation occupied with a heated presidential election campaign and the transition to a new party's control of the executive branch. The outgoing president, as is often the case in the waning months of an administration's time in office, attempted to finalize several policy initiatives. This version of the Food Law Update will discuss two major developments with significant long-term impact on the law of food: the implementation of mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) for most unprocessed agricultural commodities; and the increasing use of the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural …

Nanofood: Legal And Regulatory Challenges, Abu Bakar Munir, Siti Hajar Mohd. Yasin

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Nanotechnology will have a significant impact on food production in a variety of ways, both directly and indirectly. The growth and complexity of nanotechnology in food applications poses new challenges for the existing food regulation as well as the regulatory authority. This article seeks to examine the legal and regulatory challenges posed by the nanotechnology applications in the food industry. This article reviews some of the relevant legislation in the U.S. and E.U. in dealing with nanofood and the industry. This article also provides an assessment on the adequacy of those laws and identifies the possible gaps and weaknesses in …

Whatever Happened To Old Mac Donald's Farm… Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation, Factory Farming And The Safety Of The Nation's Food Supply, Julie Follmer, Roseann B. Termini

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Today, livestock farming is a far stretch from the nostalgic notion of animals grazing in green pastures, roaming free in the fresh country air and returning at the end of the day to a cozy barn. Simply stated, livestock farming is a large scale business, where tens of thousands of animals are swiftly raised industrial-style for maximum profit. Under the "factory farm" model, large corporate owned operations grow quantities of animals for slaughter for human consumption as food. In fact, livestock farms now raise 40% of all animials in the United States.

European Union Food Law Update, Nicole Coutrelis

Journal of Food Law & Policy

On December 23, 2006, the European Commission published Commission Directive 2006/142/EC "amending Annex IlIa of Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council listing the ingredients which must under all circumstances appear on the labelling of foodstuffs" in regard to Directive 2000/13/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of March 20, 2000, "on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs."' "Annex IIla of Directive 2000/13/EC lists the ingredients which must under all circumstances appear on the labeling of foodstuffs ... " and the new Directive …

United States Food Law Update, A. Bryan Endres

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Michael T. Roberts and Margie Alsbrook noted in the Journal's inaugural Food Law Update that "[t]he one constancy about food law in the United States is change, especially in a rapidly-developing food industry." This observation holds true today and also augurs a change in authorship of this section of the Journal. I hope to follow my colleagues' lead and provide timely and cogent updates of the federal (and occasionally state) statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions impacting food law and policy. It is both an honor and a duty, as food and its legal implications remain in many respects "the world's …

Harvey V. Veneman And The National Organic Program: Can Organic Be Synthetic?, Jennifer C. Fiser

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The market for organic products has increased dramatically in the United States and across the world in recent years.' Since 1997, sales of organic foods have grown from 15% to 21% per year, and while organic foods accounted for only 2.5% of total food sales in the United States in 2005, those sales amounted to $13.8 billion.

Safe But Not Wholesome: The Troubling State Of Trans Fat Regulation, Ross Williams

Journal of Food Law & Policy

On March 7, 2007, the New York Times reported that Starbucks, the retail coffee chain which sells millions of baked goods every day from its over 8,700 U.S. stores, had asked its suppliers to eliminate all trans fats from their products by the end of the year. The big story for New York readers, though, was not that Starbucks was requiring the elimination of trans fats from its baked goods. In fact, New York City had just passed an ordinance strictly limiting the use of artificial trans fats, the type present in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (PHVO), by virtually all …

Defying Nature: The Ethical Implications Of Genetically Modified Plants, Debra M. Strauss

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Genetic engineering is changing the semantics, the meaning of life itself. We're trying to usurp the plant's choice. To force alien words into the plant's poem, but we [have] a problem. We barely know the root language. Genetic grammar's a mystery.... We've learned a lot about the letters-maybe our ability to read and spell words now sits halfway between accident and design - but our syntax is still haphazard. Scrambled. It's a semiotic nightmare.

Brewing Green Beer: Building A Regulatory Scheme Robust To Changes In Brewing Technologies, Daniel Pashang Withers

Texas A&M Law Review

New beer brewing technologies provide brewers with options to produce beer in more eco-friendly, less resource-intensive ways; however, as brewers adopt these technologies, they may find themselves straddling between the regulatory schemes of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (“TTB”) and the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). The two agencies have divided control over beers based on their ingredients, which places some beers under the TTB’s purview as “malted beverages” and others under the FDA’s purview. These distinctions have implications for the regulatory hurdles that brewers must overcome to market their products. Additional regulations that eco-friendly, green beers …

Humanity Constrains Loyalty: Fiduciary Duty, Human Rights, And The Corporate Decision Maker, Malcolm Rogge

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This article considers whether the values contained within the idea of human rights have normative priority over economic values as they are inscribed in shareholder-oriented interpretations of the duty of loyalty in corporate law. While stakeholder theorists have sought to expand the ambit of the fiduciary duty—arguing generally that corporate fiduciary law permits managers to take into account a broad range of stakeholder interests—this article shifts the frame of analysis: It proposes that the range of corporate fiduciary loyalty is constrained by human rights as normative values that are distinct from the strictly economic values that are given primacy in …

The Seventh Circuit Missed The Bullseye In Walleye, Peter Rosenberg

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

The structure of agency relationships in a transaction should have no bearing on the outcome when the only difference between two hypothetical transactions is solely the facial structure. In the same vein, investor protection is at the forefront of the securities laws; commonly used limiting language for market announcements should not be enough to absolve a company from fraudulent disclosures, e.g., “preliminary results.”

In Walleye Trading LLC v. AbbVie, Inc., a Seventh Circuit decision, the Court did the opposite and found that, based on pleadings at the motion to dismiss stage, an issuer is not liable for the misstatements …

Fiduciary Duties And Corporate Climate Responsibility, Cynthia A. Williams

Vanderbilt Law Review

Corporate-law scholarship for decades has been occupied with agency costs and how to mitigate them. But when I teach the basic business organizations class, starting with agency law and looking at the fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and full disclosure of any agent to her principal, we explore both costs and benefits of agency relationships. I do so by introducing Ronald Coase’s theory of the firm. Using an example close to most second-year law students’ experience, that of buying a suit for interviews, I contrast Brooks Brothers establishing its own factories (the “make” decision) with Brooks Brothers using supply chains, …

The People's Court: On The Intellectual Origins Of American Judicial Power, Ian C. Bartrum

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article enters into the modern debate between “consti- tutional departmentalists”—who contend that the executive and legislative branches share constitutional interpretive authority with the courts—and what are sometimes called “judicial supremacists.” After exploring the relevant history of political ideas, I join the modern minority of voices in the latter camp.

This is an intellectual history of two evolving political ideas—popular sovereignty and the separation of powers—which merged in the making of American judicial power, and I argue we can only understand the structural function of judicial review by bringing these ideas together into an integrated whole. Or, put another way, …

Don't Change The Subject: How State Election Laws Can Nullify Ballot Questions, Cole Gordner

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Procedural election laws regulate the conduct of state elections and provide for greater transparency and fairness in statewide ballots. These laws ensure that the public votes separately on incongruous bills and protects the electorate from uncertainties contained in omnibus packages. As demonstrated by a slew of recent court cases, however, interest groups that are opposed to the objective of a ballot question are utilizing these election laws with greater frequency either to prevent a state electorate from voting on an initiative or to overturn a ballot question that was already decided in the initiative’s favor. This practice is subverting the …

Finding Parity Through Preclusion: Novel Mental Health Parity Solutions At The State Level, Ryan D. Kingshill

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Recently, the federal government has taken numerous steps to promote the equal treatment (also known as parity) of mental and physical health issues. The two most impactful actions are the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act of 2008 and the Affordable Care Act. These acts focus on the traditional avenue for parity change—insurance regulation. While these acts have improved parity, major gaps in coverage and treatment between mental health/substance use disorder treatment and medical/surgical treatment persist. ERISA Preemption, evasive insurer behavior, lack of enforcement, and lack of consumer education continue to plague patients and healthcare professionals. On its own, federal …

The Carbon Price Equivalent: A Metric For Comparing Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Across Jurisdictions, Gabriel Weil

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Climate change presents a global commons problem: Emissions reductions on the scale needed to meet global targets do not pass a domestic cost-benefit test in most countries. To give national governments ample incentive to pursue deep decarbonization, mutual interstate coercion will be necessary. Many proposed tools of coercive climate diplomacy would require a onedimensional metric for comparing the stringency of climate change mitigation policy packages across jurisdictions. This article proposes and defends such a metric: the carbon price equivalent. There is substantial variation in the set of climate change mitigation policy instruments implemented by different countries. Nonetheless, the consequences of …

Achieving Better Care In Pennsylvania By Allowing Pharmacists To Practice Pharmacy, Travis Murray

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Traditionally, state legislatures implemented Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (“PDMPs”) to assist prescribers, pharmacists, and law enforcement in identifying patients likely to misuse, abuse, or divert controlled substances. PDMP databases contain a catalog of a patient’s recent controlled substances that pharmacies have filled, including the date, location, the quantity of medication filled, and the prescribing health care provider. Prescribers in Pennsylvania have a duty to query the PDMP before prescribing controlled substances in most clinical settings. Pharmacists have a similar duty in Pennsylvania to dispense safe and effective medication therapy to patients and to screen patients for potential signs of misuse, …