중국 국제사법상 미디어에 의한 인격권 침해의 준거법 결정

Abstract

In China, an act that infringes upon a personal right constitutes a tort; before enacting the private international law, China applied the same governing law to both general cases of torts and special cases where the personal rights of a foreigner in China had been infringed. However, personality rights are characterized by intangibility. In particular, personal rights violated by media require a different type of tort. In regard to this, there is an increasing need to apply different governing laws from general torts. Article 46 of China’s Private International Law stipulates as follows: when a person’s personal rights have been violated by the media, the governing law should be that of the victim’s residence. Personal rights vary in sort, praxis, and extent, especially in different countries. Moreover, every country offers different levels of respect to personal rights and the freedom of press and publication. Thus, the outcome of litigation varies depending upon the governing law. When the personal rights of a Korean entertainer working in China are violated by the media, resulting in a legal battle, the governing law is applied in accordance with China’s private international law. Moreover, Korea’s private international law does not have regulations regarding cases where personal rights have been violated by media. Therefore, China’s private international law may be a good reference for the revision of Korea’s private international law. In this sense, this study is highly significant in terms of theory and practicality in that it focuses on how China’s private international law applies to cases of personal right infringement by the media. The following is the summary of this study. Article 46 of China’s Private International Law stipulates that, in cases in which personal rights such as name rights, portrait rights, and privacy rights are violated through the internet or other form of media, the case should be governed by the law of the victim’s residence. In a dispute caused by the infringement of personal rights accompanied with emotional damages, the residence has a lot to do with the consequence of the damage. Ordinarily, the victim’s residence is the center of his or her economic and social activities. Therefore, the victim’s residence is the place of damage and is the most closely related to the case. It is comparatively easy to define the victim’s residence; in the event that the law of the residence becomes the governing law, it is advantageous to the victim because the compensation can be based on the social norms with which the victim is familiar. Contrarily, in China, the establishment of personal rights has not yet been established in point of law. Therefore, a Chinese person who lives is China might have a lower level of protection than a foreigner whose residence is a foreign country. Media interactions often involve foreign relations; thus, personality rights violated by the media are likely to be subject to distant torts. Most medium and large press bodies have publishing factories in locations different from their headquarters; in such cases, the place of wrongful behavior is different from the place of the damage. Torts by media can be global issues, in which it is often difficult to define the place of damage. When the involved media body is the Internet, it is much more difficult to define the origin of the wrongful behavior. With the interpretation of the existing jurisdiction, China regarded the location of internet facilities as the place of the tort; however, China’s private international law applies the law of the victim’s residence as the governing law on personal right infringement by an Internet body.