DTA

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Tesi etd-06242021-120259

Type of thesis
Dottorato
Author
PEREIRA, MAYARA LUIZA
URN
etd-06242021-120259
Title
The governance of food safety as a paradigm for businesses and human rights: lessons and challenges
Scientific disciplinary sector
IUS/03
Course
Istituto di Diritto, Politica e Sviluppo - PHD IN HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBAL POLITICS: LEGAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND ECONOMIC CHALLENGES
Committee
relatore ALABRESE, MARIAGRAZIA
Membro Prof.ssa TRAPE', ILARIA
Keywords
  • business and human rights.
  • food safety
  • governance
  • right to food
Exam session start date
22/02/2022;
Availability
parziale
Abstract
The increasing awareness of human rights abuses by the activity of transnational businesses has placed business and human rights on the international community agenda, resulting in a framework of protection where roles and responsibilities were distributed among public, private, and the so-called hybrid actors. This process holds similarities with the one the food system went through, where recurrent major food crises, combined with the growing concentration of economic power among food retailers and the transnationality of food chains set the tone of global food safety governance. Global food safety governance became increasingly hybrid, relying heavily on private standards and on other so-called hybrid mechanisms. Hence, the aim of the thesis is, from the scholarship on governance and having the United Nations Guiding Principles as an organizational axis, to assess whether and which features of food safety governance could contribute to the advance of human rights protection, particularly regarding its relationship with business. Other objectives include examining the public and private facets of food safety governance and analyzing possible evidences that the governance structure implemented for food safety takes into consideration the human right to adequate food. The research developed is descriptive, as it focuses on describing the features, processes, and relations within food safety governance; but also analytical, since it elaborates a critical analysis from the data previously obtained, as well as applied, when the focus relies on the possible solutions and answers. Results indicate that the human right to adequate food has been overlooked within food safety governance discourse, receiving indirect protection, picture that could not be reproduced within the business and human rights governance. The answer for both food safety governance and the governance of human rights and business seems to be a stronger public facet, with sound States, capable of structuring organized warning systems, enforcing a regulatory framework and inspecting its observation, from actual production inspection to the careful examination of audits conducted by private certification schemes.
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