o National Human Rights Commission of Korea recommended to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy to devise a policy to conduct sample survey on products and manage consumer complaint pursuant to Article 4.4 of the Framework Act on the Safety of Products in order to secure safety of products and prevent possible damage on life, body or property of people.
o Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy replied that it plans to implement a system that could order investigation when an incident occurs and pre-safety management and inter-departments management system is stricter than other advanced nations like Germany. It also added that the system for sample survey is not in place in other advanced countries like the U.S. or Japan and it could impose excessive burden on enterprises. It mentioned that thus it will ‘carefully review’ the recommendation and decide whether to implement the system after conducting a research.
However, the system on order to investigate could only happen once an incident occurs and it is not a preventive measure. In addition, contrary to the argument of the Ministry, Germany already has this system in place. Moreover, given the continued controversy over the danger of products, preventive system including sample survey has to be immediately and actively implemented.
As seen from the cases of humidifier sanitizer, eggs contaminated by insecticide, and sanitary pad with cancer-causing material, people are worried that products that they use in their daily lives could cause harm to their life and health.
o Recently, Radon, a 1st grade cancer-causing material was detected in the bed mattress and Morganite was used in anion bracelet and other products, but the government failed to identify production and distribution of the products using these materials.
o This clearly shows the limit of post-management when we want to secure safety of the product and minimize possible damage. There has to be a policy that requires business to monitor the product during production process and after distribution to immediately recognize and take measures against possible danger.
o NHRCK however would like to emphasize that the obligation on supervision of product be applied in consideration of the size and sales profit of the company.
o In addition, securing safety of products should not be recognized as a burden but as an opportunity to garner consumer confidence and competitiveness of the company.
o Therefore, NHRCK hopes the government considers the purpose of the recommendation and changes its perception to prevent distribution of products that damage life and health of people and to bring about co-existence of enterprises.
