The Constitutional and Legal Basis of Food and Drug Regulation in Ethiopia

Abstract

One of the traditional functions of the law is regulation of behavior. Law is characterized with the feature of normativity for its capacity to establish norm in the society. Business law, specifically economic/social regulation in law is one of the manifestations of this norm building process. The era which argue for a government and its enforcement organs to distance from the market as much as possible is being replaced by a more regulation friendly market system establishment. Certain areas of business call for regulation for stronger reasons. The food and drug industry come in the forefront of this sector. This paper presents the constitutional and legal basis of the food and drug industry regulation in Ethiopia. It starts by presenting the traditional arguments for regulation in general and the food/medicine sector in particular. A global approach of food and drug industry is presented to lay the foundations for Ethiopian case narration. This is followed by the investigation of the FDRE constitution for locating basis for regulation of the industries. An exhaustive examination of current laws in place which have direct relation with regulating the food and drug industry is presented paving the road for the discussion of the major issues worthy of consideration in the discourse of regulation of food and drug industry in Ethiopia. The paper ends by arguing that the Ethiopia regulatory legal framework is constitutional and there indeed is a sufficient basis for the food and drug regulation yet the fear of capture of the regulator by the industry is not sufficiently addressed in the legal framework.