On The Improvement Of Genetically Modified Food Labeling Legislation

The first part of this article shall be the basic theory of GM food labeling discussion, focusing on the analysis of two theoretical basis of genetically modified food labeling legislation, to find out how the consumer’s right to know and the precautionary principle affect the legislation. Consumer’s right to know, which is a relative weight provides a strong legal basis for GM food labeling legislation. When conflicting with the right of manufacturers to make their own decisions, the principle of consumer’s right to know will be undermined. The application of precautionary principle is often affected by how legislators treat risks, identification of genetically modified foods voluntarily ignoring the precautionary principle, while mandatory labeling is a weak risk prevention measures.The second part shall be critically investigation of GM food labeling legislation. By combing the relevant legislative practice of China, summed up the dependen characteristics and contents of our legislation. The shortcomings of legislation contribute the difficulties of implementation, such as the criteria for GM food labeling is no operational and regulatory authorities’ rights and responsibilities are not clearly divided.Based on our national conditions and management experience of extraterritorial, the third part will focus on the general idea to improve GM food labeling legislation of China. Firstly, China’s GM labeling legislation should be mandatory, and with moderate stringency as well as prospect. Secondly, the paper analysis representative view on legislation improvement and propose suggestion as follows. On aspect of legislation, provisions on threshold and allergy labeling of GM foods should be made up, and labeling standards to be detailed. On aspect of execution, regulatory authorities’ rights and responsibilities should be defined, and it is necessary to strengthen legal liability for breach of the labeling obligation. And finally, the detection system of GM food labeling also have to be accelerate.