Category: Resnick Center

The intersection of pedagogy and practice: an interview with Duke Law Professor Allison Korn

By Lavanya Sathyamurthy*

In law school classrooms across the country, professors and students grapple with society’s most challenging issues and how to address them through the legal system. How can we ensure access to reproductive healthcare after the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion inDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization? How can we meet the needs of our unhoused population when several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed ordinances that ban camping on public property, criminalizing homeless encampments? Through these discussions, students are introduced to important concepts such as community lawyering, which encourages lawyers to work collaboratively with impacted communities, and cultural competency, which describes the ability to work effectively with people from different backgrounds. Theoretical discussions in seminars provide the basis for how students will eventually approach social justice issues in practice. However, the most fruitful learning opportunities arise at the intersection of pedagogy and practice, in clinical courses.

Clinical courses are a cornerstone of the law school curriculum. In the classroom, students learn both legal theories, such as abolition in the criminal context, and practical skills, such as client interviewing and legal research. In the field, they apply this knowledge to serve clients, taking on primary responsibility for every aspect of their case. Through these courses, students learn how to translate theory into practice to zealously advocate for their clients. Clinics also serve an important role in the community, offering assistance to and building relationships with local marginalized populations.

Continue reading “The intersection of pedagogy and practice: an interview with Duke Law Professor Allison Korn” →

Executive Director Roberts on Partnering with the FAO on its Constitution Exhibition

by Michael T. Roberts

This post is the first of two by Executive Director Roberts on the FAO’s constitutional framework.

The Resnick Center is honored to be a partner to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The FAO was established in 1945 when its Constitution was signed and ratified by nations meeting in Quebec, Canada.  It was created as part of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s broader efforts to advance the “Freedom from Want,” an aspiration he articulated in response to the catastrophic human suffering caused by hunger and malnutrition. The vision of an international organization grounded in governance principles was also central to the post-World War II global reordering.

In May, I was honored to attend the next phase of a Constitution Exhibition in Rome – a project that I helped create that celebrates and contextualizes the role of the FAO Constitution in shaping the organization’s operations and aspirations. The exhibition complements my ongoing research and writing on the development of FAO’s constitutional framework from 1943 to 1945, as well as its further development and subsequent application in global food governance through 1965.

Continue reading “Executive Director Roberts on Partnering with the FAO on its Constitution Exhibition” →

To Eat or Not to Eat: For Consumers in a City Without a Food Allergen Ordinance, The Choice Could Be Life or Death

by Melissa Deng*

For many of us without food allergies, we don’t think twice about choosing to dine at a restaurant or order take-out––often, the biggest concern is picking which restaurant you feel like eating at, what to order, and comparing costs.  But for individuals with food allergies, the choice between dining in and ordering out can mean life or death.  Even so, cities you might think are more “food allergy-friendly” like Los Angeles, which has a colloquial reputation for having a vibrant food scene, may not have an ordinance specifically governing food allergen training in restaurants––even while more than fifty percent of adults with food allergies and over forty percent of children with food allergies in the United States have experienced a severe food allergic reaction (of note is that emergency treatment for anaphylaxis resulting from a food allergic reaction increased by 377 percent between 2007 and 2016). 

What gives?  For starters, the restaurant industry is of course profit-driven, and restaurant associations have a significant impact on lobbying for or against legislation.  From an economic perspective, restaurant management might be wary of the increased costs an ordinance specifically mandating food allergen training would impose, compounded by the fact that the restaurant industry generally experiences high turnover (reportedly, there was a 28% average turnover rate for restaurants in LA last year).  From a legal perspective, restaurants might not want to face increased liability: with an ordinance that mandates training, plaintiffs can more easily make a prima facie case of negligence by showing that the restaurant’s conduct deviated from an established standard of care.  And from a psychological perspective, restaurant staff might have misconceptions about their role in preventing food allergic reactions (for example, believing that the onus falls solely on customers to order a dish that doesn’t have food allergens) and might not realize the potentially fatal consequences, such as anaphylaxis resulting from a food allergic reaction.   What this means is that consumers with food allergies are unfairly subjected to a burdensome and dangerous dining experience where each restaurant chooses which food allergen procedures to follow and to what degree. 

It is precisely this issue that drove us at the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy, in collaboration with a professor and clinical immunologist at UCLA, to begin collecting both hospital-based and anecdotal evidence on instances of food-related anaphylaxis in the city, and pursuing the task of proposing a food allergy ordinance in the City of Los Angeles that will mandate a separate food allergen training for all restaurant employees in the city.  In the beginning stages of the project, we sought to answer two underlying questions: how do restaurants communicate allergen information to their consumers; and are they effectively training their personnel in allergen disclosure for menu labeling or food handling?

Continue reading “To Eat or Not to Eat: For Consumers in a City Without a Food Allergen Ordinance, The Choice Could Be Life or Death” →

Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative

by Heliya Izadpanah and Lavanya Sathyamurthy*

This is Part I of a two-part post.

Dreaming of Food Justice in Law

By Heliya Izadpanah

UCLA Law was my dream school. Like many law schools, it catered to my interests in human rights law and environmental law. But what made the decision to attend UCLA Law a no-brainer were two rare institutional assets–its groundbreaking Critical Race Studies program paired with one of the few Food Law programs then existing in the nation.

I was a passionate advocate for food systems justice. We all interact with food daily, yet its production and distribution are rarely observed in modern society. People often don’t know the conditions under which their food is produced or the legal machines maintaining these systems. But when it comes down to it, it’s virtually impossible to identify even a single food item that isn’t riddled with disparities of race, rights, and inequity. From growing food, to harvesting, processing, transportation, access, and health outcomes, every aspect of food systems is steeped in disparities of race, gender, wealth, status, and ability.

As a teenager, I was inspired by Black Power activists and other POC leaders steeped in food systems—Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Farms Collective, Black Panthers like Erika Huggins who created the nation’s first free breakfast program, and Shirley Chisholm, a key architect of WIC and SNAP programs. Similarly, I looked up to the founding organizers of Farmworkers United—Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez—for their achievements in food production. Each of these leaders knew the power of food, revealing its power to either hold one in oppression or to act as a focal point for movement building, community power, sovereignty, and emancipation. I was eager to learn how to use law as a tool for food systems justice and get involved in the food law program.

Continue reading “Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative” →

Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative, Part II

by Heliya Izadpanah and Lavanya Sathyamurthy*

This is Part II of a two-part post.

Why Start Here?

by Lavanya Sathyamurthy



UCLA, home to the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy and the Critical Race Studies Program, is the perfect place to start a movement focused on infusing issues of equity into food law curricula. The Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy adopts a multi-faceted approach to legal research and scholarship, through courses, conferences, and academic collaboration. The Center offers various classes at the law school. Specifically, the ‘Food Law and Policy Seminar’ exposed me to a wide variety of approaches to food law. As my classmates presented on the right to food and food advertising to children, I realized that food law intersects with every area of law. Immediately, I wanted to connect food law with my background in critical race studies and, more specifically, my experiences as an Asian-American navigating the higher education food landscape. I wrote my paper about the importance of data disaggregation among racial groups within the Asian-American diaspora in crafting solutions to combat food insecurity at the University of California campuses.

Continue reading “Introducing the Food, Race, and Equity Initiative, Part II” →

Introducing a New Food Law Course: The Public Interest in Agroecological Food Systems

The Resnick Center is excited to introduce a new food law course at UCLA School of Law this fall called “The Public Interest in Agroecological Food Systems: An Investigation,” led by Professor Paula Daniels. This seminar is designed to explore the world of agroecology and public policy approaches to institutionalizing its tenets within the US food system.

In the United States, the modern food system is mostly a private industry, with little public investment and fragmented efforts focused on food access and farm-level grant programs. This course aims to address this disparity by exploring opportunities for public sector engagement and directing the food system towards a holistic approach that aligns with public interest values such as environmental sustainability, worker well-being, small farm viability, and community health.

The course will provide a thorough examination of agroecology as a holistic and integrated approach to sustainable agriculture and food systems. Through case studies and guest lectures, students will gain insight into the underlying principles of agroecology and its practical application. The course will also analyze public policy and program approaches required to institutionalize these principles within the US food system.

For more information, please contact the Resnick Center at resnickcenter@law.ucla.edu.  We encourage any student interested in advocating for a more sustainable and equitable food system to sign up this fall!

Just Released: Model Strategies in Global Food System Law & Policy

The Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy is thrilled to present: “Model Strategies in Global Food System Law and Policy,” an interactive issue brief series designed to democratize sustainable, equitable, and inclusive systems-thinking approaches to food governance.

This project was made possible due to a generous gift by the non-profit Seeding the Future Van Lengerich Foundation. 

Drawing from laws, policies, and research from around the world, the series makes the case for a paradigm shift in how we conceptualize and govern food. Rather than adopt narrowly-defined and siloed laws and policies, public and private policymakers should advance food system laws and policies , i.e., solutions that are holistic, multi-disciplinary, and which account for the diverse set of actors, activities, and feedback loops that comprise the food system.

The Resnick Center invites policymakers and other stakeholders to explore the featured model strategies and accompanying issue briefs to learn how countries around the world are successfully leveraging laws and policies to respond to the most pressing and complex food system challenges.

View the interactive story map here.

Seeding the Future Foundation Supports Resnick Center

The Resnick Center is excited to share our good news!  

We have received a generous gift of $300,000 to our endowment fund from the non-profit, Seeding the Future Foundation, founded by Dr. Bernhard van Lengerich. Dr. van Lengerich, a leader in food science and technology, also serves as an outside advisory board member for the Resnick Center.  

Since its inception, the Seeding the Future Foundation has significantly contributed to transforming the food system.  Its unique Challenge Awards Program, hosted by the Institute of Food Technologists, awards up to $1 million in grants and prizes annually for highly impactful innovations to generate healthier people and a planet.  Since 2021, Seeding the Future has received over 1,500 submissions from academic and research institutions, non-profits, and for-profits, representing over 75 countries, for innovation across the food system.  

The endowment gift to the Resnick Center will forward the missions of the Center and of Seeding the Future by supporting legal education and the development of scholarship and tools to bolster innovation that provides equitable access to safe, nutritious, sustainable, affordable, and trusted food.  

Thanks to a previous operational gift from Seeding the Future, the Resnick Center has developed a Model Food Regulatory Strategies Initiative to be launched in the second half of 2023. The Initiative identifies and amplifies positive systems-thinking approaches to food law and policy by showcasing select model regulatory strategies derived and synthesized from best regulatory practices worldwide.  This new endowment funding from Seeding the Future will enable the Resnick Center to continue to develop these types of initiatives, strategies, and tools to encourage and facilitate innovation for healthier people and the planet.   

Renewed FAO/Resnick Center Partnership

by Michael T. Roberts

I am pleased to announce that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has renewed its partnership with the UCLA Law Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy. An announcement can be found here.

The FAO is the largest and oldest sub-agency of the UN and is headquartered in Rome, Italy. The partnership was initially formed in 2019 when FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva visited the Center in Los Angeles and spoke at the law school along with Hilal Elver, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and a Global Distinguished Fellow at the Center. I am also appreciative of Hilal’s tireless efforts in pulling together this first meeting.

This renewed partnership will elevate the Resnick Center’s role in developmental work conducted by the FAO Development Law Service and complement the Resnick Center’s growing international and comparative food law focus. This focus consists of an upcoming book on international food law and other publications, the development of an online platform to publish best practices in mission-driven food law approaches based on comparative analysis, and a major white paper exploring optimal international public-private strategies in food regulation.

We also look forward to leveraging these projects into strategic collaboration with leading global universities, law firms, and organizations. Finally, as always, we hope to translate these projects and collaboration into opportunities for law students.

Reflections on the 6th Annual Food Law Conference: Current Trends & Perspectives Beyond the Beltway

by Alexa Libro*

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of attending CLE International’s 6th Annual Food Law Conference. I vividly remember attending the previous food law conference in San Francisco in February of 2020, deliberating on whether it was appropriate to shake hands and how often to use hand sanitizer. A lot has changed since then, including food law. This evolution of food law was demonstrated in every session of this year’s food law conference. Ann Oxenham, the Acting Director of the Office of Compliance in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) at the US Food and Drug Administration spoke of tech-enabled traceability as a part of the FDA’s new era of smarter food safety. The General Counsel Roundtable session exemplified how food businesses had to adapt to navigate supply chain issues, labor issues, and remote work. Thus, ending the conference with a session on the future of food law was the perfect way to reflect on how food law has evolved and surmise its next evolution.

In the Future of Food Law session, Michael Roberts, the Executive Director of the Resnick Center, moderated a conversation with two of his former students, Evan Graham Arango and Jason Lawler. The conversation illustrated why food is currently top of mind for everyone, not just food lawyers. The pandemic forced us to think about where our food comes from. For many, it was the first experience with gardening or baking bread. For many, it was the first experience not finding numerous items on a grocery list. For many, it was the first or worst experience with food insecurity.

Evan Graham Arango, the owner, founder and farmer at Ojai Roots Farm in Ojai, California noted people’s interest in regenerative agriculture and eating locally. I’m speculating that many people, like me, watched documentaries about regenerative agriculture, such as Kiss the Ground and Biggest Little Farm, when they were stuck inside, and were inspired. Regenerative agriculture and its potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere brings to the forefront the connection between our food system and climate change

Jason Lawler, an associate at Sidley Austin LLP, elaborated on how his work around the business of food interfaces with climate change realities. Businesses are aware that consumers vote with their wallets, which encourages existing businesses to voluntarily offset carbon and new businesses to form with the goal of sequestering greenhouse gases.

Michael Roberts posits that the future of food will revolve around information. As artificial intelligence gives us more insights into what to grow, how to grow it, where to grow it, and when to market it, he wonders how to democratize that information and ensure fairness in data collection and ownership. As a consumer, I wonder how all that information will be relayed to me so I can make good food choices. To all the current and aspiring food lawyers, I look forward to seeing how we navigate the future of food law and reflecting on our progress at the next food law conference.    

*Alexa is graduating this year from UCLA Law. She graduated from UCLA with a BS in neuroscience with highest honors and a minor in biomedical research in 2017. At UCLA School of Law, she has been coexecutive chair of the Food Law Society and is currently chief managing editor of the Journal of Environmental Law & Policy. She is also a research assistant with the Resnick Center.

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