Recent trends and policies for consumer safety in Korea (keynote speech)

Recent trends and policies for consumer safety in Korea (keynote speech)

Creators Park Myung Hee

Among consumer rights, our priority lies with the right to be safe. Taking the dignity of man into consideration, any type of convenience or profit in transaction cannot be preferred more than value of man's life or body. And this is why the right for safety is taken as the most important one among four basic consumer rights declared by John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Whereas we live in more comfort and convenience thanks to advanced science and technology, consumers are forced to be comparatively inferior in terms of information and knowledge regarding a product or service they are consuming. In specific, a single consumer faces difficulties in fully recognizing threat to safety due to complicated and diversified product or service. Once damage occurs in a society, it may pose a serious threat to entire health, life, and body of consumers. Therefore, we need risk management against safety accidents at the government level. Recently in Japan, there were controversies around the frozen dumpling poisoning case and misbranded food. This was as the very same in Korea as seen in lots of happenings regarding food safety. There is increasing anxiety and uncertainty over food in Korea as a series of controversial issues occur such as mad cow disease, bird flu, GMO food, food contamination, melanine scandal, and swine flu or Influenza A (H1N1). Consumer safety covers not only food safety issues but also industrial products and facilities. As this much, there are vast area to prepare against. Moreover, consumer safety issues travel across borders and extend fast and large as markets of products and services open wider on the back of increasingly globalized economy. Then, under all thses circumstances at home and abroad, how could we deal with consumer safety issues? In order to address the consumer safety issue effectively, it is the most important to build an infrastructure for gathering, analyzing, and assessing consumer injury information quickly. The basic information will include questions such as which item causes the most damage

[ISSN]0911-6303

[NCID]AN00155911