Undergraduate Course: Sustainability in Food Supply Chains: Law and Policy (LAWS10304)
Course Outline
| School | School of Law |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course considers legal, regulatory and policy questions relating to food supply chains. There will be a particular focus on food supply chain sustainability, including measures to counteract power asymmetries in the wider context of food security, supply chain regulation and food & agricultural policies. |
| Course description |
The course will consider food supply chains against the following context:
With the world¿s population rising, the amount of food needed is increasing. Climate change is upsetting, if not destroying, established production patterns. Conflict, pandemics and animal diseases are disrupting or destroying established food sources and supply lines. The environmental impact of food supply and farming practices is clear and climate goals require change to minimize the harm caused by our current food system.
Multinational companies have taken control over most of the food retail chain and food manufacturing. They purchase directly or through intermediaries from farmers and growers, sometimes via complex global value chains. These contractual relationships typically suffer from significant power asymmetry, most acutely but not exclusively in the context of small-scale suppliers.
Policy responses to tackle food security and imbalanced power structures specific to food supply chains have not had sufficient impact. More needs to be done. There is a need to inform public policy and emerging regulations to address the challenges in food supply chains and food systems.
This course aims to engage students in the debate on policy and regulatory issues, to investigate solutions, assess the current framework and proposals for new measures. Where appropriate, the topics will be informed by a comparative analysis of relevant instruments applicable in the UK, the EU and worldwide. Students also have the option to research the impact of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 on national and local food policy.
In addition to exploring the legal and policy frameworks of food supply chains, the course helps students acquire the skills and tools to assess and address issues of power asymmetry in commercial and supply chain contracting and measures to enhance sustainability of food supply.
The course provides students with a critical perspective on the challenges and limitations of commercial contracting and instruments regulating unfair trading practices, sustainability goals and human rights protection, and corporate sustainability initiatives.
The course will employ a mixture of staff-led teaching and student -led research. Students will be given a selection of topics from which they can choose one, alternatively they can develop their own topic for in-depth investigation. This topic will then form the core of their assessment. The course will culminate in a student conference, with individual presentations from each of the students on the course on the topic of their choice.
The course will cover a selection of the following range of topics and issues, depending on availability of staff and student interest:
¿ Commercial contracting and power imbalance in the food supply chain, systemic issues in supply chain contracting
¿ ¿Sustainability¿ contracting: product requirements, certification schemes, environmental clauses and enforceability
¿ Approaches to addressing power asymmetry: Regulation of Unfair Trading Practices, Corporate Due Diligence and Collaborative Legal Structures for Agricultural Enterprises
¿ Food Supply Chains in light of UN Sustainable Development Goals, esp. No.2 Zero Hunger and No.12 Responsible Consumption and Production
¿ Public Procurement of food and sustainability goals
¿ Competition law and monopsony in the food system
¿ Legal geography, policymaking and food value chains
¿ Business and human rights framework relating to food
¿ Food supply chains, food loss and food waste
¿ Agriculture policies, food production and climate goals
¿ The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022, the National Good Food Nation Plan and procurement
Please note that classes for this course will be jointly taught with Masters level students. Although students at both levels will study the same course materials, assessments will be graded according to the relevant benchmark appropriate to the level of study.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Spaces on this course are allocated as part of the Law Honours Course Allocation process. Places are generally only available to students who must take Law courses. To request a space on this course, please email Law.courseselection@ed.ac.uk |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | This course is only open to visiting students coming through a direct exchange with the School of Law (including Erasmus students on a Law-specific Exchange). Exchange students outside of Law and independent study abroad students are not eligible to enrol in this course, with no exceptions.
**Please note that Honours Law courses are high-demand, meaning that they have a very high number of students wishing to enrol in a very limited number of spaces.**
Priority will be given to students studying on exchange within the Law department, and it is highly unlikely that there will be additional spaces for general exchange students & independent study abroad students to enrol; we will look into this on a case-by-case basis in September/January. Visiting students are advised to bear in mind that enrolment in specific courses can never be guaranteed, and you may need to be flexible in finding alternatives in case your preferred courses have no available space. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
30 %,
Practical Exam
70 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Presentation and Participation in student conference:
a) Oral presentation of 15- 20 minutes followed by 5 minutes of discussion (60%)
b) Engagement in Q&A and/or acting as session chairs (10%)
2. Submission of a literature review on the topic of the students presentation (30%) |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback during teaching sessions in response to their participation performance.
Week 5: individual feedback opportunity on presentation topic selection.
Students will be provided with an opportunity of gaining formal feedback to a formative assessment exercise on a task relevant to the summative assessment (likely timeframe is weeks 6-8).
Students will engage in peer feedback (week 7).
Feedback on the summative assessment will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Knowledge and Understanding: By the end of the course, students will demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the current legal and policy framework at domestic and EU levels relating to food supply chains, supply chain sustainability and power asymmetries, and food & agricultural policies.
- Practice: Applied Knowledge, Skills and Understanding: Students will be able to apply their knowledge and understanding to given problems and analyse relevant laws and reform proposals. They will be able to apply their research skills to deepen their knowledge, understanding and analysis.
- Generic Cognitive Skills: Students will be able to identify and define problems, conceptualise complex issues and offer their critical evaluation, interpretation and insights.
- Communication, ICT and Numeracy Skills: Students will be able to use their communication skills, presenting and evaluating complex issues to their peers and specialists in professional settings, orally and in writing. They will show their ability to effectively use visual presentation tools to enhance communication
- Autonomy, Accountability and Working with Others: Students will be able to exercise initiative and autonomy in planning and delivering their course and assessment tasks; show ability to collaborate responsibly with others, with awareness of their own roles and those of others to develop their thinking in a complex subject matter
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Reading List
¿ I Lianos, A Ivanov & D Davis, Global Food Value Chains and Competition Law (CUP, 2022)
¿ Tim Lang, Feeding Britain: Our Food Problems and How to Fix Them (2021, Pelican Books)
¿ Lyn Tjon Soei Len, Minimum Contract Justice. A Capabilities Perspective on Sweatshop and Consumer Contracts (2017, Hart Publishing) (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/minimum-contract-justice-9781782257110/)
¿ Ufbeck, V et al (editors) Law and Responsible Supply Chain Management: Contract and Tort Interplay and Overlap (2019 Routledge)
¿ Martin Caraher, Sinéad Furey, Rebecca Wells, Food Policy in the United Kingdom, An Introduction (2023, Routledge) (Chapters 7 & 8)
¿ Beate Sjafjell, Anja Wiesbrook (eds), Sustainable Public Procurement under EU Law; New Perspectives on the State as Stakeholder (CUP, 2015)
¿ Uché Ewelukwa Ofodile, ¿ESG, supply chain due diligence and food systems transformation: changes and challenges¿, in Michael T Roberts Ed., Research Handbook on International Food Law, (2023)
¿ Steve New, ¿Modern Slavery and Supply Chain Transparency¿, in Thomas Y. Choi et al Ed, Oxford Handbook of Supply Chain Management, (OUP, 2020)
¿ Debadatta Bose, Ricardo Garcia Anton, Anne Lafarre, Bas Rombouts, Paul Verbruggen (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Law and Responsible Business: Legal Strategies for Sustainability in Global Value Chains, (Cambridge University Press, 2026)
Journal Articles or selected chapters of edited collections:
¿ Fabrizio Cafaggi, Paola Iamiceli, The limits of contract laws. The control of contractual power in trade practices and the preservation of freedom of contract within agrifood global supply chains, Ch 3 in F. Gomez Pomar Ignacio Fernandez Chacon Estudios de Derecho Contractual Europeo, (Editorial Aranzadi 2022).
¿ Lyn Tjon Soei Len, ¿Hermeneutical Injustice, Contract Law, and Global Value Chains¿ (2020) ERCL 139
¿ Vibe Ulfbeck and Ole Hansen, Sustainability Clauses in an unsustainable Contract Law, ERCL 2020; 16(1): 186-205
¿ Carrie Bradshaw, ¿England¿s fresh approach to food waste: problem frames in the Resources and Waste Strategy¿, (2020) Legal Studies 40, 321-343
¿ Marta Andhov, Michal Kania and Sven Mikulic, How To Procure Sustainable Food And Include Farmers In Public Procurement, SSRN Paper Series (May 2024)
¿ Koen Deconinck, 'Concentration and market power in the food chain' (OECD 2021)
¿ Jennifer Clapp, 'The problem with growing corporate concentration and power in the global food system' (2021) 2 Nature Food 404
¿ Ramasastry, A ¿Corporate Social Responsibility Versus Business and Human Rights: Bridging the Gap Between Responsibility and Accountability¿ (2015) 14:2 Journal of Human Rights, 237-259
¿ Gearhart, Judith (2023). Building Worker Power in Global Supply Chains: Lessons from Apparel, Cocoa, and Seafood. Accountability Research Center Report.
Websites and blogs and webinar recordings from the following:
City University: Centre for food Policy
https://www.city.ac.uk/research/centres/food-policy
Global Food and Environment Institute of the University of Leeds (https://www.leeds.ac.uk/global-food-environment-institute)
UNIDROIT: Collaborative Legal Structures For Agri-Enterprises
Grocery Code Adjudicator: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/groceries-code-adjudicator
Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming: https://www.sustainweb.org/
Nourish Scotland: https://www.nourishscotland.org/ |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Food supply; food security; food supply chain; food policy; Commercial contracting; sustainability; |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Simone Lamont-Black
Tel: (0131 6)50 2060
Email: simone.lamont-black@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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