Pakistan has started classes for its first-ever course on food legal systems. This course is being provided at Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, through the Nadira Hassan Law Department.
This course came into fruition thanks to Environmental and Animal Rights Consultants Pakistan (EARC Pakistan), working together with Rizq, Pakistan’s leading social enterprise working across food security, food systems transformation, sustainable agriculture, and climate resilience. EARC Pakistan is the country’s first animal and environmental law firm and research think tank.
The course explores the colonial foundations of food and agricultural laws in South Asia and how these legacies continue to shape contemporary governance. The course examines how food systems are designed, regulated, and contested in Pakistan and the wider Global South.
It also takes into account the role of legal, corporate, and institutional actors in governing food today, while examining food safety regulation, public health enforcement, environmental sustainability, climate impacts of food production, and animal welfare and ethical concerns embedded within modern food systems.
The course is intended for law students, policy practitioners, researchers, development professionals, and others engaged in questions of food governance, sustainability, and public interest. It further invites participants to reimagine Pakistan’s food system through the lenses of justice, sustainability, and law, foregrounding legal and policy pathways that can contribute to more equitable, resilient, and ethical food futures.