1 Title: Getting traceability right, from fish to advanced bio-technological products: a review of legislation Authors: Melania Borit a 1 2 and Jorge Santos a 2 Author affiliation a Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway; melania.borit@uit.no; jorge.santos@uit.no. 1 Corresponding author: Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway. Attn. Melania Borit. E-mail: melania.borit@uit.no. Mobile: +4791352814. 2 These authors contributed equally to this work. 1. Introduction Many consumers have been disturbed by recent disclosures in the media, including the presence of horsemeat in products such as beef lasagne or by the production of garments by under-paid workers or children. Over the past 20 years, the claims that many products must comply with, such as quality, security and environmental sustainability (sensu (Goodland 1995)) have diversified significantly following market and consumer demand. Supply chains in a number of unrelated fields must obey strict quality and safety requirements. They must also consider demands for compliance with claims involving security, animal welfare, pollution control and sustainability of natural resources and human societies (Elkington 1999). Examples of these fields include products derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) (Schiermeier 2004), human stem cell lines (Darnovsky & Fogel 2007), agricultural (Gebbers & Adamchuk 2010) and seafood products (Smith et al. 2010), timber (Blackburn et al. 2010), hazardous waste (Borit 2014) and toys (Hora et al. 2011). In an attempt to reassure the public that producers’ claims regarding quality, safety and sustainability, among others, are met, the European Union (EU) has assumed an active role and thoroughly legislated the production of many categories of goods. One common feature of these rules is the use of traceability as a risk management tool for the systematic gathering and recording of information on products and processes. These rules are explicitly designed to facilitate the verification of product or process claims throughout the supply chain. New