International Law

Food Safety Law

By Stan

China’s new draft food safety law, which lays out penalties from fines to life in prison for makers of substandard food, was published on the national legislature website on Sunday for public discussion.

Members of the public are being invited to make recommendations and submissions on the draft published at the National People’s Congress (NPC) website, www.npc.gov.cn.

The draft law, covering food safety evaluation, monitoring, recall and information release, was submitted to the NPC Standing Committee in December last year for the first hearing. (Xinhua)

Two comments: 1) this is fairly good PR at a time when positive PR is quite valuable; and 2) this is another good example of increasing transparency. China is quietly amassing a greatly improved record of transparency when it comes to public input on major legislation. Enforcement and internal agency policies are another story, of course, and we have a long way to go. However, let’s acknowledge the progress.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).