중국형법의 식품안전범죄에 대한 규제

This study is about the current food safety crime and its characteristics in Amendment Ⅷ to the Criminal Law of the Republic of China, which is established in 2011 and influenced by the Sanlu Milk Powder case in 2008. Food safety crimes could be defined as actions endangering the safety of food itself, or actions that are sufficient to harm the health of the human body or harmful to it. Depending on the subject of the crime, the food safety crime in China could be classified into the crime by market participants and the crime by market supervisory office. Article 143 “the crime of producing or selling foods that is not up to safety standards” and Article 144 “the crime of producing or selling toxic or harmful foods.” are the former, and Article 408(a) “the crime of dereliction of duty for food safety supervision and management.” is the latter. Although these food safety crimes in China show expansion of elements of crime and increased punishment, they have some problems such as the absence of special criminal act, the settlement of the benefit and protection of law, and the uncertainty of criminal law’s regulation. These problems can be solved by proper legislative measures including the introduction of accessory criminal law, rearrangement of the current food safety crime articles, and the elimination of obscure expressions and set-up of a limit to pecuniary punishment.