Research On Legal System Of Food Safety Supervision In China

Food safety has always been a social concern. With the booming of China’s economy, the varieties of food are becoming richer and the production process more sophisticated, however, food safety issue has raised fears among Chinese people. Not only do Chinese people worry about the food they eat, but also foreigners keep Chinese food at arm’s length because of the often occurred food safety incidents, a situation that we Chinese people do not want to see. As the society is voicing appeals, Chinese government is paying more attention to food safety. The Food Safety Law promulgated in2009aiming at improving China’s food safety regulatory system contains many innovative contents including food recall system and food safety risk assessment system. However, the endlessly emerging food safety incidents in the past two years makes it clear that the Food Safety Law still has many deficiencies, and China’s food safety regulatory system is not perfect. Therefore, China still has a long way to go in terms of ensuring food safety.The paper is divided into four parts. The first part gives a a systematic exposition on China’s legislative situation of food safety, including food safety laws, regulations, department rules, and regulations on food safety issues in the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, Tort Law and other civil laws, as well as regulations on food safety crimes in the Criminal Law.The second part focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of Food Safety Law, and taking tainted steamed buns incident happened in Shanghai as an example, it analyzes how Food Safety Law works in similar incidents.The third part compares food safety regulatory systems and food safety legislative situations in Capitalist Countries including the European Union, the United States and Japan, and draws experiences of their regulatory systems to China.The fourth part puts forward some suggestions to enhancing China’s food safety regulatory legal framework from the perspective of legislation, law enforcement and public participation.