JJUA55328U Law and Global Food Systems

Volume 2025/2026
Content

This course interrogates how different laws shape our food systems.
It offers students with an in-depth understanding of the legal structures that regulate food and determine where our food comes from, how it is produced and by whom.
In specific, it investigates legal frameworks and processes that govern food systems globally (under international law), regionally (under EU law) and domestically (under Danish law).

This course takes a critical approach towards international law and engages with questions of persistent inequities as reflected within the
law.

It introduces students to the political economy of food systems and the evolution of food governance in the past decades. The course provides a view of the broader economic, social and environmental context within which food systems operate, and explores the role of law in structuring these systems. In doing so, the course investigates a broad range of laws that are pertinent to food systems, including international trade and investment law, international
environmental and climate law, and international human rights law (including the rights of farmers and indigenous peoples).
The course explores selected contemporary topics, such as agriculture’s contribution to climate change, power asymmetries in food systems (including the growing influence of multinational corporations in food governance), the financialisation of food, as well as food activism, indigenous foodways, biodiversity and seed banks.

Overall, this course provides an overview of the complex relationship between law and food systems, and offers a rounded knowledge of the legal frameworks and tools available to address the socio-economic, environmental and health impacts of food systems.


Among other questions, the course covers:

  • What does law have to do with our food systems?
  • How has the legal governance of food systems changed over time?
  • Why is it that – while there is enough food produced globally – hunger around the world is rising?
  • Are there any legal protections for human health, animal welfare and the environment?
  • Which laws regulate the management of natural resources that are essential for the production of food, such as agricultural land and seeds?
  • Do farmers have any legal rights, and, if so, how can they pursue them?
  • What is food activism, and has it had any impact on food law- and policy-making?
  • What is the right to food sovereignty?
  • What is Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), and what is its relevance in large-scale investments in agricultural land?
  • What is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, and what are its strengths and weaknesses?
  • How do food systems in Denmark operate, and is Denmark a forerunner in sustainable agriculture?
Learning Outcome

Knowledge: 
By the end of this course, students will have gained:

- a comprehensive knowledge of international legal norms that regulate food systems

- a solid understanding of the role of law in contemporary processes of food production and provisioning, both at an international and national level

- insights into different legal frameworks viewed from the lens of the state, corporations and communities

 

Skills:
Upon the successful completion of this course, students will have demonstrated:

- a capacity to identify varying (often conflicting) legal frameworks that regulate food systems

- an ability to situate these legal frameworks within a broader political economic, social and environmental context

- a skill to legally assess policies and practices pertinent to food security and the governance of food systems

- a capacity to apply international legal norms that regulate food systems to specific cases


Competences: 
Students will have developed:

- an ability to interpret and reflect on a range of legal texts

- an ability to develop legal argumentation in a clear and concice manner and with appropriately and accurately provided legal sources

- a competence in legal writing on and close legal analysis of the governance of food systems

- an ability to engage critically with legal frameworks that regulate food systems and evaluate how law could/should be

The assigned reading will be approximately 750 pages. Readings will be posted on Absalon and be categorised as mandatory or optional. Students are not expected to buy any books for this course.

 

Indicatively, reading material includes:


Alabrese M. and Savaresi A., ‘The UNDROP and Climate Change: Squaring the Circle? in Alabrese M., Bessa A., Brunori M. and Giuggioli P.F. (eds),The United Nations' Declaration on Peasants' Rights (Routledge 2022)
 

Alam S. and Al Faruque A., ‘From Sovereignty to Self- Determination: Emergence of Collective Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Natural Resources Management’ (2019) 32(1) Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 59
 

Baars G., The Corporation, Law and Capitalism: A Radical Perspective on the Role of Law in the Global Political Economy (Brill 2019)
 

Chadwick A., Law and the Political Economy of Hunger (Oxford University Press 2019)


Canfield M., ‘Transnational Food Law’ in Zumbansen P. (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law (Oxford University Press 2021)


Claeys P., Human Rights and the Food Sovereignty Movement: Reclaiming Control (Routledge 2015)


Clapp J., Food (2nd edn, Polity 2016)


Cohen A.J., ‘The Law and Political Economy of Contemporary Food: Some Reflections on the Local and the Small’ (2015) 78(1-2) Law and Contemporary Problems 101


Fakhri M., ‘Third World Sovereignty, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Food Sovereignty: Living with Sovereignty Despite the Map’ (2018) 9(3-4) Transnational Legal Theory 218


Gonzalez C.G., ‘Climate Change, Food Security, and Agrobiodiversity: Toward a Just, Resilient, and Sustainable Food System’ (2011) 22 Fordham Environmental Law Review 493


Lambek N., ‘The Right to Food: Reflecting on the Past and Future Possibilities – Synthesis Paper’ (2015) 2(2) Canadian Food Studies / La Revue Canadienne des Études sur l’Alimentation 68


Leonelli G.C., ‘GMO Risks, Food Security, Climate Change and the Entrenchment of Neo-liberal Legal Narratives’ (2018) 9(3-4) Transnational Legal Theory 302


McMichael P., ‘A Food Regime Genealogy’ (2009) 36(1) The Journal of Peasant Studies 139


Mutua M., ‘Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights’ (2001) 42 Harvard International Law Journal 201


Narula S., ‘The Global Land Rush: Markets, Rights, and the Politics of Food’ (2013) 49(1) Stanford Journal of International Law 101


Orford A., ‘Food Security, Free Trade, and the Battle for the State’ (2015) 11(2) Journal of International Law and International Relations 1


Rajagopal B., ‘From Resistance to Renewal: The Third World, Social Movements, and the Expansion of International Institutions’ (2000) 41(2) Harvard International Law Journal 529


Saab A., Narratives of Hunger in International Law (Cambridge University Press 2019)


Salomon M.E., ‘The Radical Ideation of Peasants, the ‘Pseudo-radicalism’ of International Human Rights Law, and the Revolutionary Lawyer’ (2020) 8(3) London Review of International Law 425

 

It is illegal to share digital textbooks with each other without permission from the copyright holder.

Students should be proficient in legal English
- Lectures that involve active group discussions. Lectures will often draw upon current affairs to underline the wider relevance of our subject-matter
- Guest lectures by other food law experts as well as contributions by members of the civil society
- Group work and presentations on assigned topics. One of the assignments will include a journaling exercise as part of which students will journal about what they have eaten, where their food was grown, where their food has been purchased and who prepared their meal. This exercise will offer us insights into the highly globalised nature of our food systems
- Beyond traditional legal sources, we will engage with films and other art forms
Students are expected to have read the required reading material and identified central legal aspects as classes are based on discussion and group engagement.

Oral participation and group presentations are mandatory. This course is a safe space in which everyone will be made to feel comfortable to share their thoughts and where nobody will be discriminated against in any way.

Learning and teaching activities include:
- Presentations of previously agreed topics and/or assigned reading
- Group work on assigned activities
- Oral feedback by the lecturer on assigned activities
- Peer-to-peer feedback
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Preparation
  • 356,5
  • Seminar
  • 56
  • Total
  • 412,5
Oral
Collective
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)
Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Home assignment
Type of assessment details
Individual written assignment
Aid
All aids allowed

Read about the descriptions of the individual exam forms, including formal requirements, scope and deadlines in the exam catalogue
 

Read about practical exam conditions at KUnet
 

Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
No external censorship
Exam period

Hand-in date: 15-12-2025

Re-exam

Hand-in date: 29-01-2026