风险与法律:食品安全责任的分配如何可能

在现代社会,科技发展引起的食品安全风险日益增多。如何防范风险,确保食品安全,维护消费者健康,构成世界各国政府与公众关注的焦点;随之,法律结构也有了改变。由于风险所带来的不可预知性和不确定性,导致了因果关系链在经验世界中断裂,借助"肇事者原则"来确定过失与肇事者,并据此分配责任以补偿受害者,在举证上也就变得日益艰难。然而,人类要存续,法律要实现预期功能,仍需假定风险是可把握的、可控制的外在客观对象,并添加"预防原则"以重新分配食品安全责任,达到分散风险目的。为此,除了要构建食品安全主体的责任伦理外,还需实现从单纯惩罚机制向责任保险模式的转变。

On the Distribution of Liability in Food Safety

Food safety is a burning issue of the day. How to protect against the risk factors, how to ensure food safety and how to safeguard the health of consumers, these problems are on the table. Consequently the structure of the law has been changed. The unpredictability and uncertainty of the risk led to the split of cause and effect in practice. The causer principle cannot be efficient enough to ascertain the misfeasance and the causer, and accordingly it is difficult to provide evidence to distribute the legal liability and compensate the victims. However, it is necessary to assume the risk is controllable. The precautionary principle shall be applied to redistribute the legal liability of food safety. Therefore, moral liability is important, and the shifting from punishment to liability insurance is a must.