Bio:
Bita Amani, B.A. (York University, with Distinction), LL.B. (Osgoode), S.J.D. (UofT) is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Queen's University in Kingston, Canada and teaches courses in intellectual property, information privacy and feminist legal studies workshop. She has also taught courses on international aspects of intellectual property governance, and torts. Bita was a doctoral fellow of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy and the Social Science Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her dissertation was published as a monograph, State Agency and the Patenting of Life in International Law: Merchants and Missionaries in a Global Society, (Aldershott: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009) and is part of the Globalization and Law Series. She has published in all areas of intellectual property and more recently a new course text (co-edited with Carys Craig), Trademarks and Unfair Competition - Cases and Commentary on Canadian and International Law (Toronto: Carswell, 2011). Dr. Amani has served as government consultant on gene patenting for the Ontario Advisory Committee on Predictive Genetic Technologies and on the e-Laws project for the Ministry of the Attorney General, Office of the Legislative Counsel in Ontario, and briefly as a legislative drafter. She is called to the Bar of Ontario.
Title of paper:
Novel Foods, Body Burdens and Gender Equality in Assessing Regulatory Impact
Abstract:
The development of novel food is often rhetorically justified by industry proponents on the promises it holds to feed the world and cure the sick. Scientists have heralded genetic and biological manipulations that enable the creation of plant derived edible vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, and nutrient enriched, resilient, and highly adaptable 'improved' varieties of crops. Such food must meet regulatory oversights for market approval. Novel food regulation in Canada is governed by Health Canada with standards that give particular priority to whether there is substantial equivalence between the novel food and its traditional counterpart. Novel Food Regulations in Canada underplay the significance of chemical difference to the safety determination of genetically modified food for consumption. Yet, in the field of biopatenting it is very much the chemical difference that matters for securing private intellectual property rights. Judicial attitudes from the field of intellectual property characterize 'DNA as chemical' and have thereby facilitated bio-patenting by agrochemical, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical firms This talk will examine how the metrics for assessing food safety in Canada may be flawed and the regulatory impact of novel food gendered. A gender based analysis of novel food regulation is needed for at least two meaningful reasons. First, intellectual property rights have contributed to the need for gender based analyses by merging the realms of agriculture and business, demonstrating in the process how women are sometimes treated as subjects, objects, or conduits for health delivery. Second, despite promises to the contrary, pesticide and herbicide 'ready' varieties may paradoxically be resulting in the increased use of applied chemicals which in turn have gendered impacts due to different body burdens. A fresh perspective for policy making in novel food regulation is needed; one that is sensitive to body burdens, consistent with conceptual attitudes in treating 'DNA as chemical' in the biopatent law, and alive to the importance of gender equality in regulatory impact assessments. Such a shift may well open the door towards mandatory labelling of GM foods in Canada and give effect to more coherent policies for assessing risk, based on the precautionary principle, helping to alleviate, in the process, some of the particular concerns of harm for women, their health, and environments.