A Study On Legal Issues Of China's GMO Agricultural Product Trade

With the development of genetically modified organism(GMO) technology and rapid increase of GM agricultural products trade,most countries in the world has paid attention to the possible negative impacts of the GM products on people's health and natural environment.As a double-blade-sword,the modern biotech has brought significant,greatly deep and extensive impacts on the human beings' behavior,so that the human society's current law and regulations have to be adjusted accordingly.Therefore,a study on legal issues of GMO technology has given law workers at home and overseas an inevitable great task and challenge.The objective of this paper is not only to identify the major legal issues in China,to review the legal approaches to the same issues across a number of western countries,but also to present a legal approach to improve the current regulations on the GMO agricultural product trade. Firstly,this paper points out those legal issues arising from the GMO agricultural product trade,which can be categorized mainly into three aspects as follows:rules for labeling GMOs;rules for compensation liabilities of GMOs;rules for supervising and management.Next,the paper overviews the legislative practices internationally including international organizations and major Western countries;further,the paper analyzes the legislative disadvantages of GMO agricultural product trade in China; finally,the paper has provided a comprehensive approach to solve the legal issues of GMOs agricultural product trade in China,including the following aspects:As to the rules for labeling GMOs,improve labeling rules and establish rules on IP(Identity Preserved) certification;As to the issue of compensation liability,establish rules for accountability of GMOs.Which shall be independent,strict,systematic,comprehensive;As for the issue of supervising and management,improve rules for licensing for GMOs,on testing and quarantine and safety evaluation,establish trace testing and supervision and reporting,the public participation,and market alerting.In addition,the paper states that it should be noted that establishing a good legal framework for regulating GMO agricultural product trade can be involved with complexity and uncertainty.To do this,a number of factors,such as science,technology,natural environment,economy and ethics,shall be considered as a whole.