Blockchainizing Food Law: Promises and Perils of Incorporating Distributed Ledger Technologies to Food Safety, Traceability, and Sustainability Governance

【Author】 Lin, Ching-Fu

【Source】FOOD AND DRUG LAW JOURNAL

【Abstract】Blockchain refers to distributed ledger technologies that can store, maintain, and update data collaboratively along a network of computing nodes. With the help of cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, and consensus mechanisms, data input to the blockchain is simultaneously and permanently recorded and updated in all the nodes of the network, ensuring a high level of consistency and authenticity of such data. Given such technological advantages, blockchain's potential to revolutionize the global food supply chain seems salient: transforming paper-based documents into a blockchain-enabled identity to generate a high level of transparency and data integrity, enabling smaller farmers to bypass middlemen in crops trading and cash transfers and providing an efficient and cost-effective way to manage the production system. In 2017, IBM announced a collaboration with a few major food producers and retailers, including, inter alia, Dole, Nestle, Tyson Foods, Kroger, Unilever, and Walmart, to leverage disruptive technologies such as blockchain to enhance quality control, food safety, management, and traceability. Similarly, the United Nations World Food Program launched the Building Block program in 2017, which uses iris-scanning technologies and blockchains to help Syrian refugees verify their identities and directly receive aid without intermediaries. Despite such promising development, blockchain is not a silver bullet to solve all food governance issues. Rather, there may be some new challenges that need to be adequately addressed. As argued by this Article, blockchainizing governance of food safety, traceability, and sustainability may pose another layer of regulatory questions about technical capacity and infrastructure gap, scalability and implementation costs, global standardization politics, cybersecurity and data protection, and technologically inherent limits of blockchain. In addition, policy challenges to both developed and developing countries (albeit in different ways) in terms of operational expertise and technical infrastructure, scalability and implementation costs, and power asymmetry in international standard-setting cannot be ignored. More generally, this Article argues that such regulatory questions may call for a reconceptualization of the forms and substances of conventional food law and policy as well as data protection law, anti-trust law, and trade law. In this light, this Article calls for a more technologically informed policy-making process before rushing into the hype of blockchainizing food law.

【Keywords】

【标题】食品法区块链化：将分布式账本技术纳入食品安全、可追溯性和可持续性治理的承诺和风险

【摘要】区块链是指分布式账本技术，可以沿着计算节点网络协同存储、维护和更新数据。在密码学、点对点网络和共识机制的帮助下，输入到区块链的数据在网络的所有节点中同时永久记录和更新，确保这些数据的高度一致性和真实性。鉴于这些技术优势，区块链彻底改变全球食品供应链的潜力似乎很突出：将纸质文件转变为支持区块链的身份，以产生高水平的透明度和数据完整性，使小农能够绕过农作物交易和现金的中间商转移并提供一种高效且具有成本效益的方式来管理生产系统。 2017 年，IBM 宣布与几家主要食品生产商和零售商合作，其中包括多尔、雀巢、泰森食品、克罗格、联合利华和沃尔玛，以利用区块链等颠覆性技术来加强质量控制、食品安全、管理和可追溯性。同样，联合国世界粮食计划署于 2017 年启动了 Building Block 计划，该计划使用虹膜扫描技术和区块链帮助叙利亚难民验证身份，并在没有中间人的情况下直接接受援助。尽管取得了如此有希望的发展，但区块链并不是解决所有食品治理问题的灵丹妙药。相反，可能存在一些需要充分解决的新挑战。如本文所述，食品安全、可追溯性和可持续性的区块链化治理可能会带来另一层监管问题，涉及技术能力和基础设施差距、可扩展性和实施成本、全球标准化政治、网络安全和数据保护以及区块链的技术固有限制.此外，发达国家和发展中国家在运营专长和技术基础设施、可扩展性和实施成本以及国际标准制定中的权力不对称等方面面临的政策挑战（尽管方式不同）也不容忽视。更一般地说，本文认为此类监管问题可能需要对传统食品法律和政策以及数据保护法、反垄断法和贸易法的形式和内容进行重新概念化。有鉴于此，本文呼吁在大肆宣传食品法区块链化之前，制定一个更具技术信息的政策制定过程。

【发表时间】2019

【收录时间】2022-07-17

【文献类型】Article

【论文大主题】区块链政策法律

【论文小主题】区块链法律

【数据来源】wos

【影响因子】0.442

【翻译者】丁子仪