Research On Legal Systems Of GMF-Risk Supervision In China

Rapid development of Genetically Modified Food (hereinafter as "GMF") has brought plenty of benefits, such as resolution of food shortage problems around the world, enrichment of dietary structure, great promotion of reformation in domains of agriculture and food and further great production of economic and social profits. The safety of GMF has no final conclusion because of scientific nondeterminacy, and scientific and technic means cannot absolutely exclude the existence of risk of consumption and environment, which would cause severe and irreversible damage to human health and the environment. So China should take a serious attitude towards marketization of GMF. China has so far enacted several administrative regulations and rules on basic principles, labeling and evaluation of legal supervision over GMF, including Regulations on Agro-GMO Biosafety Management (hereinafter as "RAGBM"), Management Measures on Agro-GMO Labeling (hereinafter as "MMAGL") and Management Measures on Agro-GMO Evaluation (hereinafter as "MMAGE"), and further forms the basic frame of legal supervision over GMF risks. However, present supervision over GMF risks in China, subject to that over agro-GMO, is deficient in the stage of post-market supervision, lacking not only post-market safety assessment and necessary risk prevention measures but also operability of labeling system. This dissertation aims to provide several proposals on improvement of supervision over GMF risks and further realize the whole-stage supervision, after combing and analyzing present legal supervision mechanism of GMF and its deficiency. This paper is composed of four parts as follows:The first part presents potential damage of GMF in two aspects, the former stating damage to human health of toxicity, sensitization and resistance to antibiotics of GMF and the latter demonstrating negative impacts on non-target plants and field exposure problems caused by GMF, and further figures out the necessity of legal GMF-risk supervision with legal-ethics and legal-economics approaches.The second presents deficiency in post-market supervision over GMF and enforcement of labeling systems in China after combing the legal structure of present GMF-risk supervision in three aspects of basic principle, labeling and safety evaluation mechanisms.The third part at first presents connotation of risk-prevention principle by exploring its theoretical basis and application necessities, and further proposes its application in domain of GMF risk-prevention supervision in China following analysis of foreign application of risk-prevention principle.The fourth part, based on the risk-prevention principle, presents concrete proposals on improvement of legal systems of GMF-risk supervision in China in three aspects, including promotion of labeling rules, post-market assessment and risk prevention measures.