Class News

Francis Snyder ’64, food-safety expert in China, author of 17 books

November 8, 2021

Francis Snyder is C.V. Starr Professor of Law at Peking University's School of Transnational Law (STL). He is also the Director of STL’s Center for Research on Transnational Law.

His web page on the Peking University website contains his following statement:

Health, shelter, and food are essential human needs. In recent decades, however, we have seen increased risks throughout the world concerning food security (do people have enough to eat?), food safety (is our food safe to eat?), and food quality (is our food nutritious?). In addition, current legal arrangements in many countries often pose obstacles to the development of societies and legal systems that can manage these risks. STL offers an ideal opportunity for teachers and students to work together to meet these challenges. Creative law teaching and innovative legal research have important roles to play in encouraging interdisciplinary understanding of such complex issues. They may also provide policy recommendations to government, economic organizations, and consumers. They can contribute to safeguarding the present and ensuring a future that it is ecologically sound and environmentally sustainable.

Professor Snyder is also Founder and Co-Director of the Pearl River Delta Academy of International Trade and Investment Law (PRAIA), based in Macau. He is Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium (1989-present), Adjunct Professor at the University of Macau, and Emeritus Professor at the CERIC, Aix-Marseille University. Until recently he also held a part-time Special Endowed Chair Professorship for Food Safety at Northwest University of Agriculture and Forestry (NWAFU), Yangling, Xi’an, Shanxi Province, where he served as Research Director on Food Policy and Law at the Sino-US Joint Research Centre for Food Safety (JRC).

In 2018 he was awarded the China Friendship Award, (中华人民共和国友谊奖), which is the People’s Republic of China’s highest award for “foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the country’s economic and social progress.” In 2018 he was also awarded the Friendship Award of Peking University.

He has written seventeen books, shown below. The first three are available on Amazon USA and therefore are shown on our Publications web page with links to Amazon USA. The remaining books are available on Amazon France.