The Shift in China from Corporate Crime to the Crime of Corporate Manslaughter: Comparisons with the United Kingdom and Australia

摘要

The Chinese Criminal Law 1997 (CL 1997) recognises that corporations can be guilty of committing crimes: in other words, that they can exhibit a legal personality. However, there have been few comparative studies which have the aim of conceptualising the value and benefits that this criminal liability has actually brought to China. The author seeks to find out how this corporate criminal liability was incorporated into the Chinese drafting, and suggests that provisions of corporate criminal liability extend to regulate the crime of "corporate manslaughter". Through comparisons with Australia and the United Kingdom, this article shows the similarities in the adoption of "negligence" for regulating the crime of corporate manslaughter. This negligence standard is inherently an objective standard that represents the corporate intent. In addition, the author argues that much like the United Kingdom's Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Chinese Work Safety Law is an alternative means of regulating the crime of corporate manslaughter, apart from the fact that it is derived from the socialist principle of workers' rights.