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The recent reauthorisation of glyphosate in the European Union is a uniquely suitable opportunity to study the relationships between law and science because, unlike many other controversies that are commonly perceived through the science/democracy dichotomy, in this case the disagreement was between the "scientific" assessments of two purely "expert" bodies, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This paper takes a close look at some details of the two assessments to show how scientific assessments are shaped by the legal environment to such an extent that it is impossible to separate "legal" from "technical" issues at any level; they are entangled together "all the way down". Furthermore, it identifies three side effects of this entanglement that were previously unnoticed. First, obscure legal rules may provide (usually unintended) leverage to some of the parties. In turn, this forces everybody into proxy wars on the issue where the leverage is, at the expense of all other concerns that they may legitimately have. Finally, despite the strict legal regimentation of the scientific assessment, significant space for judgment remains, and discretion is never removed, only shifted to different places or levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this judgment, the General Court annulled two Commission decisions authorising the placing on the market of the GM potato Amflora. The Court did not base its decision on the arguments put forward by the applicant Hungary, which contested the underlying scientific assessment of the European Food Safety Authority, but found of its own motion a breach of an essential procedural requirement in the applicable comitology procedure. Whilst the Court's proactive role in scrutinising the Commission's behaviour in the authorisation procedure of GMOs is to be welcomed, the Court arguably missed an opportunity to exercise its role as a deliberative forum for normative controversies underlying the scientific risk assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a report published by Great Britain's House of Lords which includes regulations on plant protection products, also known as pesticides, after Brexit. Topics discussed include assessment of pesticides conducted by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), granting of its legal approval under the Food and Environment Protection Act, and information on the risk-based approach.

The article focuses on the European Commission's efforts to create a legal basis for European Union countries to opt out in the cultivation of genetically-modified organisms. It states it did not involve the advise of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as it wasn't related to environmental hazards or health and reports the EFSA has not backed the safeguard clause. It considers difficulties the clause may bring with the World Trade Organization as it is not based on scientific reasons.