What are the main provisions of the Biosafety Law?

The 22nd meeting of the 13th the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) passed the Biosafety Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) (hereinafter referred to as the Biosafety Law), which came into effect in April of 20021and 15, with a total of 88 articles in 10, focusing on major emerging infectious diseases, animal and plant epidemics, research and development of biotechnology, and biosafety of pathogenic microorganism laboratories.

The promulgation of this law will help to solve the problems existing in the field of biosafety management in China from the legal system level, ensure the healthy development of biotechnology, protect people's lives and health, and safeguard national biosafety.

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Necessity of Biosafety Law

For many years before, all parties in China lacked sufficient understanding of biosafety issues, and the importance of biosafety was ignored. Provisions on biosafety are scattered in many laws, administrative regulations and departmental rules, such as Environmental Protection Law, Agriculture Law, Wildlife Protection Law, Entry and Exit Animal and Plant Quarantine Law, and Regulations on Safety Management of Agricultural Genetically Modified Organisms. There are many problems such as multiple policies, scattered management responsibilities of various departments, insufficient supervision and so on, and a comprehensive and systematic law is urgently needed to take charge of the overall situation of biosafety work.

Formulating the biosafety law is helpful to solve the problems existing in the field of biosafety management in China from the legal level, and is of great significance to ensuring the healthy development of biotechnology, protecting national health and safeguarding national ecological security.

Paper-Biosafety Law is coming!