Abstract: Since the introduction of joint responsibility into the Food Safety Law, there have been many disputes in judicial practice including the subject of joint responsibility, the orientation of responsibility, and especially the applicability of punitive compensation. The reason may be ascribed to the three disadvantages of China’s current legislative system. First, the civil responsibility criteria are inappropriately adopted in the Food Safety Law, and do not provide clear definitions for several special stipulations such as “knowing perfectly well”. Second, responsibility sharing rules are lacking for all compensations including actual loss and punitive compensation as far as the external compensatory relationship of operators to consumers and the internal contribution of joint operators against operators with major responsibility are concerned. Third, the value of legislation attaches too much importance to compensation to consumers after the fact, and mutual supervision among operators along the supply chain cannot meet the requirement for risk prevention. Therefore, it is highly necessary to eliminate the deficiency of civil legislation with joint responsibility, and clearly define the standards for joint responsibility in the fields of both legislation and justice. Moreover, a comprehensive system for joint responsibility and rules to pursue compensation needs to be established according to the responsibility for faults. At the same time, the existing recoupment system should be modified to some extents, and a system involving joint shouldering of responsibility and joint prevention of risks for food safety should be constructed based on joint responsibility.

Key words: food safety, joint responsibility, legislative improvement