A comparative examination of some basic concepts and general structure of food criminal law

Abstract

Some of the basic concepts alongside the general structure of food criminal law are examined comparatively in this paper. The aforementioned basic concepts are specifically, “food”, “the right to adequate food”, “food security, “food safety” and “food fraud”. As regards the general structure of food criminal law, after a brief look at international concerns, we will examine the classifications and formulations of breaches of the law as well as some crime types. In particular, some characteristics of the two crime types which are directly related to food criminal law and regulated under the Turkish Criminal Code under the headings of “adding poisonous substances” (s. 185) and “commerce of spoiled or altered foods and medicines” (s. 186) have been explored. In this paper, we focus on “food safety” as one of the main legal values protected through food criminal law, not on the issues related to “food security” and “economic interests of consumers”. With this paper, by comparatively presenting some of the basic concepts and the general structure of food criminal law, we have attempted to lay the foundations for future studies on food criminal law.