LASCAUX and food security law around the world

LASCAUX et le droit de la sécurité alimentaire dans le monde

François Collart Dutilleul (1, 2)

1 Programme ERC Lascaux
2 IRDP - Institut de recherche en droit privé

This paper is about the research methods, stages, challenges and results of the LASCAUX programme, a European research programme that took place over five years, between February 2009 and January 2014. The LASCAUX programme is concerned with food issues, “from plough to plate”, from a mainly legal perspective. More particularly, the nuclear core of the programme is based on the study of the concept of "food security", according to the definition from the FAO. Studying food security is demanding for researchers in Law: being at the meeting point of different areas of law, but with no clear and indisputable way to identify a special field of the law that could be named food security law, its recognition and effectiveness depend on bringing together a vast set of coordinated rules which must be revealed or thought up. Besides, studying food security means working on legal issues which are not just technical but societal, with regard to socio-economic issues, and therefore concrete reality.

Mots clés: Agricultural development; agro-ecology; intensive/industrial agriculture; agricultural biodiversity; climate; sustainable development; agrarian law; land law; women's rights; international investments; farm seeds; Agri-food trade : short supply channels; fair trade; international trade; competition; agri-food industries; free trade; physical and financial markets; World Trade Organization; North-South relations; speculation; Agricultural and agri-food products : appropriation of living organisms; biodiversity; patents on seeds; certification; consumer-citizens; geographical indications; consumer information; quality labels; proprietary plant varieties; quality; quality marks; environmental and social values; Food security : access to food; access to land; access to water; food crises; Human Rights; famine and starvation; malnutrition; globalization; rural and urban poverty; health safety; under-nutrition; sovereignty; land-grabbing

Domaines: Droit

François Collart Dutilleul. LASCAUX and food security law around the world: The intellectual history of an atypical legal research programme. 2014. ⟨halshs-01144353⟩