Research On The Human Organ Transplantation From The Criminal Law Perspective

Human organ transplantation technology is like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, thetechnology solved the problem which the traditional medical treatment methods cannot solve, and it wasknown as one of the highest achievement of modern bio-medicine; on the other hand, with the universalapplication of this technology, clinical demand for human organs is increasing. The growing shortage oforgan donors and other issues on illegal organ transplantation are rapidly generated. Because of the lagof legislation, laws and regulations to regulate this technology is not perfect, especially in the criminallaw. The lack of appropriate norms made this kind of harmful behavior cannot be effectively curbed.So-called legal organ transplantation should comply with the provisions of the law, and it shouldfollow a certain pre-condition which is effective commitment. Thus organ transplantation can berecognized by law. Illegal organ transplantation is often directly against the victim’s human dignity, life,right of health. The specific performance of the illegal trade in human organs is illegal harvesting ofhuman organs, illegal use of the death organs, without qualification in organ transplantation, and illegalhuman experimentation. Such harm behavior caused a serious infringement to the citizens’ personalrights, disrupted the normal medical order, and violated the regulation of medical order.In view of the particularity of such acts and its harm to society, many countries and regions havedeveloped a special Human Organ Transplantation Act. Although the legislative models are different,those laws are increasing to combat this harmful behavior. On May1,2011, our country implementedCriminal Law Amendment (8) to regulate the crimes of Organ Transplantation and organize others tosell human organs. These kind of behavior could be sentenced to the crime of intentional homicide,intentional assault, insult, and theft of Corpses, Criminal Law Amendment (8) filled the blank ofChinese criminal legislation to address parts of the issues and controversies in the judicial practice, andcan combat crimes effectively. However, Organ transplantation behavior is very complex, and there aremany different views on this issue. The Criminal Law in our country is very limited to solve all theproblems on this issue, therefore we need to explain and improve the content of the Criminal Law.