Consumer protection in food trade: Reconstructing Indonesia’s safety standards under WTO SPS and TBT frameworks

This article examines the rising regulatory challenges posed by intensifying global food trade under liberalization and highly integrated supply chains, where food safety standards operate not only as public health safeguards but also as de facto trade instruments. The study aims (i) to assess whether Indonesia’s food safety standards provide adequate consumer protection in global food trade while complying with the WTO SPS and TBT Agreements, and (ii) to formulate a reconstruction model of Indonesia’s food safety standards grounded in a One Health approach. Employing normative (doctrinal) legal research with a statute approach and a conceptual approach, this study analyzes WTO instruments (SPS Agreement, TBT Agreement), relevant WTO interpretive materials, and Indonesian food safety regulations, supported by authoritative reports from international organizations (e.g., FAO/WHO/WOAH) and key scholarly works. The findings indicate that Indonesia has formally adopted core SPS–TBT principles public health protection, precaution, and quality control yet substantive implementation remains partial. Regulatory practice is still sectoral and administrative, with risk assessment not consistently functioning as the central scientific basis required by SPS Articles 2 and 5, while limited transparency and incomplete harmonization with international standards may weaken legal legitimacy under TBT disciplines. The study’s novelty lies in demonstrating that the principal problem is not regulatory absence but regulatory orientation and method, and in proposing a One Health–based, risk-based, consumer oriented, SPS–TBT compliant, and trade-defensible reconstruction framework to strengthen consumer protection and reduce SPS–TBT dispute risks in the WTO.