On The Improvement Of The Foreign Product Liability Legislation Of China From The Perspective Of Import Product Problems In Recent Years

Product liability means damage compensation civil liability born by the manufacturer and the seller, when they provide products with defect and bring personal or property loss to consumers. It was originated from the country of Britain, and later on gained swift development in the county of U.S.A. It has now changed over from the early contract law field to the modern law of tort field and has become one of the relatively independent and important fields of law of tort gradually. As a result of modern large-scale production, product liability has become an inevitable law phenomenon, which is attached great importance to in the law theory as well as in the judicial practice in all the countries around the world. It has evolved into a problem with striking international characteristics. With China's accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the number of import products is on the rise, and the problem of product liability has taken on international characteristics instead of internal quality. Getting acquaintance with the main provisions in product liability of our important partners in the world trade and international uniform law and practice and perfecting the law system of foreign product liability in China according to the current situation are of great necessity and significance.The current legislation in our country in product liability is mostly substantial law, whose content has already far fell behind the requirements of the times. And little even nothing concerning product liability with foreign character is stipulated. In the field of conflict law, the present provisions in our country are too simple, narrow and not very feasible. The obsoleteness of the legislation will definitely lead to contradiction and confusion in judicial practice. Especially when Chinese consumers suffer injury or property losses, our legislation and judicial system cannot guarantee they acquire justified and reasonable compensation and safeguard their rights. And this is also one reason why foreign companies including those world-renowned transnational ones disregard business credit and social responsibility and export products of inferior quality to our market times and times again to seek high illegal profits by taking advantage of the imperfection of our law system. Therefore, the establishment and improvement of our foreign product liability law has become an urgent issue for our country.In this thesis, through several real cases about import product liability in our country, I analyzed several disadvantages of the product obligation legislation in China by comparing situations of China with the law system of other countries with advanced legislation experience and expatiated my own suggestions on how to improve the legislation and the principles of law application in the field of foreign product liability. In addition to the preface and concluding words, the thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter I introduces the concept and characteristics of product liability and elaborates on the history and present situation of legislation in product liability home and abroad, which illustrates the importance of the foreign product liability and summarizes the shortcomings in Chinese law; Chapter II deals with the legal constitution of product liability; Chapter III, on the basis of comparison between China and other countries in the issues including the concept of product, defect of product, the main body of product liability, the principle of product liability and how to solve the compensation problems in product liability, puts forward the improvement of our legislation mainly from the perspective of regulating import products. This chapter is a key chapter of this thesis. In the aspect of product defect, with the introduction of the concept of product defect in U.S.A. and international uniform legislation and the analysis of the reason why consumers of our country frequently encounter with import product with defect, the chapter offers the measures we should take both in legislation and administration. It suggests the concept of product defect be amended as such that product quality should be in conformity with the national and industry standards ensuring health and safety of human body and property, and on that basis, no unreasonable danger exists and consumers'normal expectation for safety should be satisfied. Otherwise, it can be defined as product with defect. And in administrative management, high-efficiency and cooperative supervision system should be set up and more support is given to scientific research so that advanced standards can be stipulated. In the aspect of damage compensation, the chapter takes the case of SK-II as the example to demonstrate the necessity to establish spiritual injury compensation and punitive damage compensation systems and at the same time advances the specific principles to be based on in practice. As to the amount of spiritual compensation, consideration should be given to how close the relation is between product and health, the fault of the responsible party and the victim, and the extent of the spiritual harm. Besides, the judge can also think of the business credit and performance in undertaking social responsibility of the defendant. A limit should be set on the amount of punitive damage compensation and all the elements including the defendant's possible recognition of the injury, its ability to bear the punitive compensation and its attitude to the accident are to be investigated. Chapter IV focuses on the suggestions about the principles of the application of law in cases concerning foreign product liability; Chapter V puts forward several practical measures from the viewpoint of policy such as the establishment of defect product call-back system .Nowadays, the amount of defect import product in our market is still on the rise, posing practical or potential threat to the consumers. In the course of realizing the great and significant goal of constituting harmonious society, how to protect the justified rights and interests of consumers, ensure their reasonable and fair compensation and preserve a healthy market competition order has become an important and urgent issue to be faced and resolved in the law field. The thesis puts forward some shallow thoughts on the framework and content of our foreign product liability from the perspective of import product. It is hoped that the thesis can be some contribution to the perfection of Chinese product liability legislation.