Groundbreaking Article about Food Law & Policy, Co-authored by FLPC Director Emily Broad Leib, Published in Wisconsin Law Review

The Wisconsin Law Review has just published “Food Law & Policy: The Fertile Field’s Origins & First Decade“–an article co-authored by FLPC Director Emily Broad Leib and Baylen Linnekin, Executive Director of Keep Food Legal, a national nonprofit devoted to food freedom. The article is the first to describe the history and development of the ten-year-old field of Food Law & Policy. That field, as the authors define it, “is the study of the basis and impact of those laws and regulations that govern the entire ‘food system’”–including not just federal laws and regulations but those at the state and local levels.

In what is likely a first for legal scholarship, the article also features a 7-minute video companion, which is directed by American University Prof. Leena Jayaswal and co-produced by Linnekin, Broad Leib, and Jayaswal. It features Linnekin, Broad Leib, and several of the key players in the development of Food Law & Policy–including Harvard Law Prof. Peter Barton Hutt; Drake Law Prof. Neil Hamilton, Arkansas Law Prof. Susan Schneider, and UCLA Law Prof. Michael Roberts.

“When I was in law school, no one talked about food law and policy in the sense of the courses that are taught now,” says Broad Leib. “The field of Food Law & Policy covers obesity, food safety, social justice, and food waste, and the body of laws spans various federal agencies as well as state and local laws and policies. The importance of examining the law and policies impacting our food system cannot be overstated—this system touches all individuals and communities in terms of our health, our environment, and our economy.”

As Linnekin and Broad Leib detail in the article, Food Law & Policy has been a growing and welcome addition at law schools around the country. A recent Harvard Law School publication noted, for example, that there is “no hotter topic in law schools right now than food law and policy.” With this groundbreaking new article and video companion and the spread of law school courses focused on Food Law & Policy, we are confident this field will only continue to grow in scope and importance over the next decade.

To read the full article in the Wisconsin Law Review, see Baylen J. Linnekin & Emily M. Broad Leib, “Food Law & Policy: The Fertile Field’s Origins and First Decade,” 2014 Wis. L. Rev. 557 (2014).