Private food safety standards, private law and the EU: exploring the linkages in constitutionalization

Abstract

Private food safety standards regulate significant parts of the global trade in food. The highly effective implementation of those standards in global supply chains by private law means has challenged their legitimacy, however. This chapter discusses whether and to what extent the European Union and its Member States have sought to engage with private food safety standards and ‘constitutionalize’ them by encouraging and requiring adherence to good governance norms. The chapter reveals that the EU plays at least two constitutionalizing roles: first, it provides a basis and structure for private food safety standards around which their procedural and substantive requirements are organized; second, it mediates the development of these standards as a means to ensure compliance with its food safety laws. In fulfilling these roles, the EU is part of an ongoing transnational dynamic that both shapes and contests the legitimacy and constitutional standing of private food safety standards.