The article examines China's food standardization system, its reform and remaining challenges. Upon examining China's general standardization system, the article argues that the food standardization institutional framework has originated from the general standardization, which has developed a four-level hierarchy mechanism. It further examines the most salient features of China's food standardization system, namely, top-down hierarchy and intensive government involvement, and suggests that these features caused a regulatory failure. Although China recently reformed this fi eld, and the food safety standard hierarchy has been streamlined, challenges remain. The article reviews China's current reform in the food standardization system by providing a description, analysis and comparison of approaches from Europe and China.

The start of a new European Commission represents a unique opportunity to build on successful regulatory reforms and to create the institutional architecture needed to ensure that high quality scientific evidence is used effectively in EU decision–making. The appointment by President Barroso of a Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) in 2011 constituted an important springboard in this respect. The CSA Office has made a considerable and positive difference to the regulatory environment. This article argues for embedding the CSA Office into the institutional and procedural arrangements of the Commission by re–defining its organisational role and responsibilities as well as the resources allocated to it. The institutionalisation of the CSA Office and the creation of a fully–fledged risk regulation regime would provide a robust element of the EU's response to the demands for better governance by its citizens, as expressed in the recent European elections.

Joined Cases C-358/13 and C-181/14, Markus D. and G.

Substances which produce effects that merely modify physiological functions but which are not such as to have any beneficial effects, either immediately or in the long term, on human health, are consumed solely to induce a state of intoxication and are, as such, harmful to human health do not fall within the scope of the definition of a “medicinal product” in the Directive 2001/83 (official headnote).

Consumer safety and medicines control legislation is not suitable to penalise the introduction of new psychoactive substances on European markets (author's headnote).

Art 1(2)(b) Directive 2001/83

The title of our new section inevitably evokes a most basic question: What are lifestyle risks? While it is not that simple to define this broad term, in this editorial we aim at introducing the EJRR readership to this fascinating emerging area of risk studies. We shall attempt to describe the nature of lifestyle risks by identifying their main features and by raising some of the fundamental questions that are inherent to any discussion on this topic.

Ulrich Beck's Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity provides a lens through which we can analyze contemporary debates over risk regulation of agricultural biotechnology. This article establishes the political and cultural context into which genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were introduced in the European Union, by reviewing the HIV-contaminated blood scandal, mad cow crisis, and dioxin contamination episode. These public health and food safety scandals exemplify the side effects of modernization as outlined by Beck. Beck also predicted the development of a solidarity arising from the public's anxiety over the global distribution of modernization's risks. The impact of these cases on risk regulation illustrates the political and social reaction to the invisible, global risks of late modernity. The subsequent response to this reaction in European risk regulation further demonstrates the tension between a globalizing market and public anxiety in risk society.

This article deals with the civil liability issues that arise when self-driving vehicles are admitted to our streets. Firstly, it is explained why strict liability regimes for the vehicle holder, which are in place in several jurisdictions across Europe, are a workable foundation for ensuring compensation of the victim. However, accidents caused by highly automated vehicles will raise the question of the manufacturer's liability for a defective product. Accordingly, this article examines the effects of the circumstance that accidents occurring with self driving cars will no longer be caused by misconduct of the human driver, but often rather by a system malfunction. Thirdly, it is argued that preferably the manufacturer should be the risk bearer and that this shift in liability towards the manufacturer will result in an adequate allocation of liability.

Despite Iceland's economic recovery, nearly 48% households continue to struggle to make ends meet. This study argues, first, that the main reason behind over-indebtedness in this country is a loan system without parallel in Europe, based on a triple cost of credit (fix/variable interest, indexation of credit to inflation and negative amortization). Second, the problem is examined in the context of European law as some alleged malpractices of indexation have been referred to the EFTA Court. Third, the focus shifts to the debt-relief programme presented by the Icelandic government in 2013/2014 after the relative failure of previous debt-relief measures. It is argued that this plan will fail in the long run as long as the indexation of credit to inflation is not abolished. The private pension system in Iceland relies indirectly on indexed mortgage credit issued by the public Housing Financing Fund. Since a ban on indexation and a holistic pension reform are not expected soon, all present debt write off benefits will surely be eaten up by higher inflation. As long as indexation of credit is legal, the future scenario resembles less a debt-relief jubilee and more the theater play “Waiting for Godot ”.

Case n. 380, 22.10.2012, Victims of the earthquake v. Barberi et al., (members of the NationalCommission for the Prediction and Prevention of Major Risks),Tribunal of L'Aquila, grounds delivered on 29.01.2013; (first degree of judgment).

Articles 113, 589, c.1and 3, 590 Criminal Code (113 – Cooperation in negligent homicide, 589 – Negligent homicide, 590 – Negligent personal injury)

The Tribunal of L’Aquila condemned seven members of the National Commission for the Prediction and Prevention of Major Risks to six years in prison for manslaughter because they dismissed the role of scientists in a March 31, 2009 meeting. The meeting was convoked in L’Aquila to provide the population of L'Aquila, which was scared after a continuous series of tremors lasting three months, with serious information on a scientific base. On the contrary, the members of the Commission supported a press campaign launched by the Chief of the National Civil Protection to reassure the population. Five days after the meeting, a serious tremor took place causing more than 300 deaths.

Leather is one of the most efficient, natural and renewable resource, a unique and highly versatile material which contributes to the quality of everyday life and has done so for centuries. Due to its resilience, comfort and beauty, leather has played an important role since the beginning of times in satisfying man's clothing and decorative needs. Technically speaking, leather is a fundamental output of the leather tanning industry. Tanneries recover the hides and skins that are discarded by-products of the food industry producing meat for human consumption and convert them into leather, a stable material with a wide range of applications in downstream sectors of the consumer goods industry. Footwear, garment, furniture, automotive and leather goods industries are the most important outlets for EU tanners’ production. More specifically, the footwear Directive provides a definition of “leather”, which reserves the use of the word and its synonyms to products resulting from the processing of animal remains that retain the natural structure of the fibres undamaged.

Harmonization is an essential instrument of international risk governance. It is the process through which disparities among national regulatory standards are ironed out, producing uniform outcomes that all participants in a regime can accept and that facilitate the free exchange of regulated goods in commerce. Contrary to conventional belief, however, harmonization requires not only technical but also political cooperation, since standards themselves are not direct mirrors of reality but are co-produced responses to technoscientific and political uncertainty. Attempts to harmonize standards across national borders therefore pit alternative political cultures and their systems of public reasoning against one another. Put differently, harmonization calls into question the underlying models of subsidiarity that provide the foundation for robust international regimes. This paper examines three models of epistemic subsidiarity – coexistence, cosmopolitanism, and constitutionalism – and discusses each scheme's capacity to protect a nation's fundamental political commitments while advancing the goals of international risk governance.

This section is devoted to giving readers an inside view of the crossing point between intellectual property (IP) law and risk regulation. In addition to updating readers on the latest developments in IP law and policies in technological fields (including chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, agriculture and foodstuffs), the section aims at verifying whether such laws and policies really stimulate scientific and technical progress and are capable of minimising the risks posed by on-going industrial developments to individuals' health and safety, inter alia.

This section regularly examines Regulatory Impact Assessment (IA) at three levels: the EU, the Member States and internationally. Contributions aim to cover aspects such as the interface between IA and risk analysis, looking at methodologies as well as legal and political science-related issues. Contributions are meant to report and critically assess recent developments in the field, develop strategic thinking, and make constructive recommendations for improving performance in IA processes.

The article accounts for the development of the European Commission's evaluation system. The article shows how internal and external developments shape an evaluation system aiming for both accountability and policy learning. In 58 interviews, several justifications for the evaluation system emerge, including four types of accountability as well as an evaluation system constructed to facilitate learning from past experience. In the system's commencement, financial and legal accountability overshadow the focus on policy learning that was perceived to be in contradiction with the two former. However, the article also demonstrates that accountability and policy learning are not necessarily opposed to each other.