Genetically Modified Food, Human Rights and Patents

The regulation of GMOs lies within the framework of a multiplicity of principles and interests at stake, ranging from food security to the fight against hunger and malnutrition to healthy food, sustainable development, biodiversity, and food sovereignty. From a comparative perspective, a circulation of legal models, in particular the European one that is based on the precautionary principle, takes place in the context of the existing legal pluralism. However, this phenomenon raises questions, on the one hand, with respect to the dynamics of international trade with more permissive legal systems such as that of the United States; on the other hand, with regard to the limited effectiveness of the application of this model in some systems such as the Chinese one. The global race to appropriate genetic resources through intellectual property rights, puts small farmers at risk, especially in developing countries. The emergence of technologies like the “terminator gene” and the monopolisation of CRISPR patents could further threaten agricultural sustainability and food security, highlighting the urgent need for equitable access to genetic technologies and legal reforms to ensure global food security.