Study On The Criminal Regulation Of The Abuse Of Human Gene Editing Technology

In recent years,the birth of human gene editing technology has promoted the transformation and upgrade of medical technology.It has broad application prospects in the treatment and prevention of serious diseases,and has become a favored research object in the medical field.However,driven by market and research interests,organizations and individuals may evade supervision and illegally carry out human gene editing activities,resulting in therapy-unproven gene editing technologies,which is not mature enough or breach of ethic,being improperly used,exacerbate Safety risks.Thus the issue of the misuse of human gene editing comes up."Abuse of human gene editing" refers to "intentionally violating the regulations by conducting research and development activities on human gene editing technology prohibited by the state or conducting clinical research and clinical translation application of human gene editing technology without ethical review or administrative approval procedures".The Criminal Law added the crime of illegal gene implantation and embryo cloning to bring some of the abuses of human gene editing into the criminal circle.Based on the perspective of legislative criticism,this paper applies the principle of legal interest protection to test the legitimacy of criminal law intervention in the misuse of human gene editing.The risks arising from the misuse of human gene editing are characterized by unpredictability,artificiality,and non-reversibility.Criminal law intervenes to protect the emerging collective legal interest of human genetic security.Based on the irreversible nature of the risk of misuse of human gene editing and the serious and widespread damage caused by the associated risks once realized,it is necessary to adopt a criminal legislative strategy of prior prevention and early intervention at an early stage of the risk.Although China has developed many legal norms for human gene editing and other life sciences,there are deficiencies in the relevant predecessor legislation.Among them,civil legal norms play a very limited preventive and disciplinary role,while administrative legal norms have a low level of legislation,poor articulation,lack of rigidity in the configuration of legal responsibilities,and insufficient effectiveness.It is difficult to effectively regulate the misuse of human gene editing by the existing legal framework,and the use of criminal means to regulate the misuse of human gene editing can strengthen the synergistic regulation,which is in line with the requirement of unity of law and order and does not violate the principle of modesty.However,criminal laws regulating human gene editing may impose restrictions on the rights of individuals,which also poses a difficult weighing of interests.In order to maintain the sustainable stability of human society,the principle of public interest taking precedence over individual interest should be upheld,and there is a reasonable basis for restricting civil liberties based on the protection of genetic safety.Thus,the involvement of criminal law in the misuse of human gene editing is consistent with the principle of proportionality and contributes to the protection of legal interests.Under China’s existing criminal law system,the newly established crime of illegal gene implantation and embryo cloning has loopholes that affect the effectiveness of the criminal law,and it is difficult for other traditional crimes to cover the crime of abuse of human gene editing in the bottom.In addition,there is the problem of poor articulation between criminal law and administrative law with unclear boundaries.It is necessary to add a specific crime of misuse of gene editing to the criminal law,and strengthen the interface between criminal law and administrative regulations through the construction of "co-legislation" model,in order to better achieve the regulatory effect.In addition,in order to promote the benign development of science and technology,criminal law needs to construct a dynamic legislative risk assessment mechanism to achieve rational protection in the process of regulating gene editing technology.