The Problem Of Food Safety Regulation Of Public Participation

As a major livelihood issue, food safety is concerned with the health and life safety of the public. In response to food safety issues, the government has made some active efforts:it has strengthened food safety regulation through the integrated use of administrative, economic and legal means; and meanwhile it has tentatively built a food safety regulatory system supported by laws, rules, regulations and technical systems. However, the existing food safety regulation system in China is still incomplete and inadequate without sufficient public participation. This situation undoubtedly leads to the failure of effectively resolving existing food safety problems as well as to the frequent occurrence of new food safety affairs. Among current defects, the lack of public participation system constitutes one of the key factors in food safety supervision. It is shown in this thesis that the final solution to food safety problems lies in public participation in every link of food safety supervision as well as the benign interaction between the public and the government in food safety regulation, which can be established through system and institutional construction. During the research process, this thesis combines questionnaire investigation and literature research to analyze the status quo of public participation in food safety regulatory system in terms of institution and implementation, and summarizes the main problems concerning public participation in food safety regulation. With a reference to relevant experiences in major developed countries, this thesis proposes the following measures:strengthening public participation in legislation, perfecting relevant legal system, further deepening the reform of government regulation system, setting up public opinion monitoring platform, improving food safety information disclosure system, developing social organizations, promoting self-discipline and good faith construction in industry associations, and exploring public participation in law enforcement with information as the bond.