Obesity Prevention: Assessing the Role of State and Non-State Actors under International Law

Table of ContentsI. Introduction 217II. "Globesity" Is on the Rise 218III. International Trade Liberalization Is Fattening Us Up 219IV. International Efforts to Combat Obesity Are Toothless 222V. The Domestic Toolbox to Fight the Flab is Limited by WTO Law 224A. Import Restrictions on Unhealthy Foods or Ingredients 2251. The SPS Agreement 2262. Import restrictions on unhealthy food based on food safety 227B. Nutrition Labeling 2281. The TBT Agreement 2292. Mandatory labeling in Chile 2303. Voluntary labeling in the U.K 231C. "Fat" Taxes 2321. Article 111:2 of the GATT 2332. The Danish fat tax 233D. Subsidies to Encourage Healthy Eating 2341. The Agreement on Agriculture 2352. Food stamps and incentives for healthy purchases 235VI. Domestic Efforts to Fight Obesity Can Be Ineffective and Regressive 236VII. Addressing Globesity Requires Imposing Legal Obligations on Non-State Actors That Have Thrived within the Global Free Trade System 239A. Focus on Price-Barriers to Healthy Foods 242B. Corporate Social Responsibility and International Law: The Wal-MartSolution 2431. Negative and positive corporate duties under international law 2442. Voluntary corporate commitments create international legal obligations: scope and enforceability 246VIII. Conclusion 248I. IntroductionGlobally, the number of obese people is approaching the number of undernourished people.1 While commentators have blamed a number of factors for this trend, a particularly salient one is trade liberalization. Scholars have argued that trade liberalization affects the availability of certain foods because it removes barriers to foreign investment in food distribution.2 In response, governments have implemented a variety of policy measures to correct for their populations' growing waisdines. These measures are sometimes incongruous with the international trade laws safeguarded by the World Trade Organization (WTO), and as a result, countries may abandon or soften them so as to avoid sanctions or retaliation. These instances of incongruence suggest a degree of tension between the international trade regime and certain, although not all, government efforts to change unhealthy diet patterns.In response, scholars have tried to interpret the various international trade law treaties in ways that would legitimize those diet-related policies that are in tension with the international trade regime.3 This Comment, though, will argue that the potential for these efforts to be ineffective and regressive demands that scholars and policymakers focus their efforts to alleviate "globesity" elsewhere- namely, on non-state actors, specifically corporations, that have particularly thrived within the global free trade system.4 This Comment posits that international human rights law should be understood as recognizing corporate responsibilities to address distributive barriers to healthy eating.The sections below proceed as follows. Section II discusses global trends and provides background information regarding weight and diet. Section III argues that trade liberalization has contributed to the world's growing waistlines. Section IV discusses international efforts to fight obesity, and Section V then examines four different policy tools under WTO law that national governments have employed to combat obesity. Section VI questions the desirability of some of these state policies in terms of their efficacy and distributive effects. …