In May 2, 2007, China officially banned the trade in human organs, China's state media reported. The Asian giant is often accused of heavily involving in the harvesting human organs of executed prisoners for organ transplant surgeries.
Is harvesting human organs for transplant in this way ethical? After all, lives are being saved from such transplant surgeries. Well, the debate on this subject matter by various interest and human right groups is ongoing and yet to be settled.
The new law and regulations issued by the State Council, China's powerful cabinet prohibit all organizations and individuals from trading in human organs in any form, the official state media, Xinhua news agency reported.
Any doctor or surgeon found to be involved in illegal trading of human organs for transplant surgeries will have his/her medical license revoked. Clinics and hospitals will be suspended from doing transplant operations for at least three years if convicted of defying the law on organ transplant trade.
Fines have been set at about ten times the value of the outlawed trading of human organs and government officials convicted for trading in human organs will be sacked immediately.
International human right groups have long accused China country of harvesting human organs from executed prisoners for organ transplant surgeries without their consent or that of their family. China's hospitals too have also been similarly accused of stealing human organs from road accident victims and other dead patients without telling family members.
The Chinese government has always denied any of these accusations, saying that most organs are voluntarily donated whom the donors have given their consent. Foreign patients facing compatible shortage of human organs in their home countries have flocked to China where human organs are plentiful and the transplant surgeries are relatively less expensive.
China has the world's second largest number of human organ transplant performed after the United States of America with about 5,000 transplant operations performed every year. However, if you look at the population of China, the world's largest population, the number of transplant operations is still relatively small.The new law does not apply to transplants of human tissue such as cells, corneas and bone marrow.
Do you think that China's ban on the human organ's trade is a move in the right dierection? Are there better ways to harvest human organs ethically? After all, the donors are already dead and their organs will be wasted when buried or cremated along with them. Why not let the dead bring life to the living?
Back from summer break, I begin a fresh season of employment law blogging with a new edition of my Real Pleadings feature involving an explosive case working its way through the Ontario courts.
Diane LaCalamita v. McCarthy Tetrault is a lawsuit by a female lawyer at McCarthy’s, one of Canada’s big Bay Street firms. The lawsuit [...]
A while ago, I did a post discussing an attempt by Microsoft to recover money it claimed it mistakenly ‘overpaid’ employees when they were fired. I noted that if the amount paid is in the range of what the common law ‘reasonable notice’ would provide, I couldn’t see any reason why the employee would have [...]
There was a story in the New York Times over the weekend that describes how a company named Regis Corp. has asked its employees to sign a document stating that the employees ‘revoke’ any union membership card they have signed or may sign in the future. Regis Corp is that company that runs low end [...]
Last week I noted an interesting case out of Ontario called Stowar v. Telehop. That’s the case in which the HR Manager made an error in the termination letter, offering 5 months’ pay instead of the ESA minimum of 3 weeks’ pay. When the employer noticed its mistake, it refused to pay the 5 month’s notice, [...]
National security checks that have held up U.S. and other foreign purchases of Chinese businesses became law on Thursday. The anti-monopoly law marks the first time demands for such reviews have been enshrined in China's legal system, bringing together various rules and guidelines enacted as early as 2002. It takes effect August, 2008.
If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then the Chinese can be very sincere flatterers indeed. But if you prefer prosperity over flattery it would be wise to take precautions against losing your shirt (or at least the rights to it) in one of the world's most dangerous IP jungles. It isn't that the legal regime is deficient - it's enforcement that's lacking. For the present at least, China is a net importer of intellectual property. A relatively lawless IP environment is advantageous to China's short-term interests, just as a strictly enforced IP environment suits the interests of net IP exporters such as the United States. This issue has been constant irritant in relations between China and Western nations, as well as Japan. Nevertheless, China's enforcement of intellectual property has steadily improved in recent years.
Protecting intellectual property (IP) in China requires a multi-pronged strategy including registration, workplace security, employee contracts, commercial contracts and enforcement.
If you want to be a successful real estate investor in China the most important thing you must take care of is to acquire local legal representation before even starting the search for property to match specific investment needs, and also to access the help of a licensed real estate agent.
The Chinese government has enacted seemingly conflicting laws controlling the resale of immovable property and land as well as the development of land and property and these laws and regulations are applicable to everything ranging from the possible environmental aftereffect of the sale to limiting the sale to Chinese citizens only.
A few decades ago there was hardly any such field as international law – only domestic law representing clients with funny sounding names. Although that situation has changed, the globe is not yet as borderless as the media would have us believe it is. Nevertheless, US lawyers are heading to China in increasing numbers to practice "cutting edge" foreign investment law, and many of these adventurers are fresh out of law school. Conventional wisdom has it that heading overseas straight out of law school will ruin your career back home should you ever want to relocate stateside.
If you are considering setting up a company in the People's Republic of China (the "PRC") you should be aware that Chinese law is more protective of employees than the laws of many western nations, particularly the United States. The current PRC Labor Law was enacted in 1994; however, a new PRC Labor Contract Law, intended to supplement the Labor Law, is expected to come into force at the end of 2006. This new law contains both bad news and good news from the point of view of the foreign investor; however, in general it further strengthens the protection of employees.
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