ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the evolution in the Netherlands of a regulatory system – policy, legislation and institutions – for risk analysis in food.

Section 2 describes the policy arena at government level. Section 3 focuses on the enforcement of food law in general and on the role of the food safety authority in particular. Section 4 introduces the EU law concept of risk analysis and the way in which it has been implemented in the Netherlands. Section 5 places this concept in the context of the general framework of Dutch administrative law. Section 6 analyses what little case law is available so far on this subject. Section 7 discusses how the concept of risk analysis is applied in practice by the food safety authority. Finally, section 8 draws some conclusions from the discussion in this chapter.