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Journal of Consumer Policy’s 40th Anniversary Conference: A Forward Looking Consumer Policy Research Agenda
Abstract
On the occasion of the 40 years anniversary of the Journal of Consumer Policy (SpringerNature), the editors share their view of the next decade's most important topics in consumer policy and law.
... The results obtained align with the prior studies (Ally, 2019;Bartolini et al., 2017;Mathios et al., 2020). Democracy, secularism, and egalitarianism are elements of modernity that individuals with personality traits such as agreeableness and flexibility tend to exhibit a higher inclination toward modernity. ...
Life, as a process, is a function of the dynamic and complex interplay of social factors such as "modernity." Modernity refers to a new era that, while distinguishing human experiences and values from the past, is also influenced by human agency, including personality traits. The aim of this study was to predict modernity orientation based on Neo-personality traits in students. The research design, based on its objective, was a correlational study using multiple linear regression and MANOVA. The statistical population consisted of students enrolled at Payame Noor University in the Tehran Province during the 2021-2022 academic year. A total of 895 students from Payame Noor University in Tehran were selected using a multistage cluster random sampling method. To collect data, a 43-item researcher-made modernity orientation questionnaire (Pashm Feroz, 2023) and the short-form NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1989) were used. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed that extraversion (β = 0.14, p < 0.001), openness to new experiences (β = 0.197, p < 0.001), and agreeableness (β = 0.076, p = 0.035) significantly predicted modernity orientation. A significant difference in modernity orientation between women and men was found at the 0.05 level (p < 0.05), with women showing a stronger orientation toward modernity. Furthermore, the results revealed that single individuals had a greater orientation toward modernity compared to married and divorced individuals at the 0.05 level (p < 0.05).
... The results obtained align with the prior studies (Ally, 2019;Bartolini et al., 2017;Mathios et al., 2020). Democracy, secularism, and egalitarianism are elements of modernity that individuals with personality traits such as agreeableness and flexibility tend to exhibit a higher inclination toward modernity. ...
Life, as a process, is a function of the dynamic and complex interplay of social factors such as "modernity." Modernity refers to a new era that, while distinguishing human experiences and values from the past, is also influenced by human agency, including personality traits. The aim of this study was to predict modernity orientation based on Neo-personality traits in students. The research design, based on its objective, was a correlational study using multiple linear regression and MANOVA. The statistical population consisted of students enrolled at Payame Noor University in the Tehran Province during the 2021-2022 academic year. A total of 895 students from Payame Noor University in Tehran were selected using a multistage cluster random sampling method. To collect data, a 43-item researcher-made modernity orientation questionnaire (Pashm Feroz, 2023) and the short-form NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1989) were used. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed that extraversion (β = 0.14, p < 0.001), openness to new experiences (β = 0.197, p < 0.001), and agreeableness (β = 0.076, p = 0.035) significantly predicted modernity orientation. A significant difference in modernity orientation between women and men was found at the 0.05 level (p < 0.05), with women showing a stronger orientation toward modernity. Furthermore, the results revealed that single individuals had a greater orientation toward modernity compared to married and divorced individuals at the 0.05 level (p < 0.05).
... Oleh karena itu, keamanan harus menjadi pertimbangan saat merancang sistem pembayaran elektronik untuk meningkatkan niat konsumen untuk menggunakannya. Kemudian Mathios et al., (2020), juga menjelaskan bahwa konsumen perlu mendapat perlindungan dari pencurian informasi pribadi dan transaksi keuangan, serta menjamin konsumen agar terhindar dari ancaman bahaya, akibat bertransaksi melalui marketplace. Selanjutnya Raman and Annamalai, (2011) dalam Alwafi and Magnadi, (2016) menyatakan "Terdapat dua parameter keamanan yakni jaminan keamanan dan kerahasiaan data. ...
Tujuan pokok dari adanya penelitian ini ialah menguji pengaruh Kepercayaan ( Trust ), Keamanan ( Scurity ), persepsi resiko ( Risk Perception ) , dan norma subjektif ( Subjecticity Norm ) terhadap niat bertransaksi secara online ( Intetion to online transaction ). Hal ini untuk mengantisipasi ketidak pastian dan resiko, yang menjadi petimbangan serius bagi para pelanggan online dalam melakukan transaksi online . Penelitian ini bersifat kuantitatif dengan tehnik purposive sampling , tertuju pada mahasiswa pengguna internet yang telah lulus mata kuliah Sistem Informasi Akuntansi, Jurusan Akuntansi program reguler dan ekstensi, Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Pattimura Tahun 2019. Desain penelitian yang digunakan bersifat explanatory research , yang mana menjelaskan kaitan kausal antar variabel menggunakan uji hipotesis. Dari penyebaran kuesioner diperoleh 60 orang mahasiswa sebagai responden yang dianggap mewakili populasi. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa adanya pengaruh berbanding lurus pada (Positif) keamanan, kepercayaan persepsi risiko serta norma subjektif kepada niat bertransaksi online.
... sustainability and sustainable consumption. Consumer policy necessitates the realignment of consumer law and consumer rights with sustainability (Mathios et al., 2020), extending to sustainable consumption policies and governance. Sustainability must be at the centre of most, if not all policy-related discussions. ...
Consumer policy must address the unsustainability of consumption which now threatens consumer safety in the form of the climate and ecological crises. Arguably, only strong sustainable consumption governance methods can bring about changes at the scale and speed required. This article discusses one emerging policy tool within strong governance, namely consumption corridors which could bring about absolute reductions in the negative impacts of consumption in a just manner and using deliberative democracy. Consumption corridors are applied in the context of the current meat system, a common driver for the twin crises, and an issue central to achieving the sustainable development, biodiversity, and Paris climate goals. The recently developed planetary health diet offers a useful plan for the transformation of global food systems, and could be combined with sustainable consumption corridors for meat. Systems thinking identifies change in societal paradigms as most effective. To support such change, this article suggests two metaphors as discourse tools, whereby individual and societal transformation in meat consumption occurs as a journey along a continuum of different meatways. The article also suggests specific actions for bringing about meat consumption corridors, and argues that this context could also serve as a bridge for increased societal acceptance of recomposed consumption.
... In the era of the industrial revolution 4.0, consumer behavior faces conditions that are very different from the past. There are very many problems arising in this era because everyone faces various choices that are very complex and pamper the consumers, but on the other hand they encourage individuals to be irrational (Howells, 2020;Sima et al., 2020;Grewal et al., 2020;Mathios et al., 2020). The disruption that occurs in consumer behavior as a result of the industrial revolution 4.0 is increasingly being studied in the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic (Bonilla-Molina, 2020). ...
This study was designed to reveal the effect of socioeconomic status, individual modernity, and economic literacy on consumer rationality of the millennial generation, either directly or indirectly. It used a quantitative approach, and was designed as an explanatory study. It involved 362 samples using proportional random sampling from 3867 millennial generation students from across 10 faculties, and 149 study programs at Universitas Negeri Makassar. The research data was collected through a questionnaire that had been tested for its validity and reliability. Then, it was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling analysis. It was found out that (1) socioeconomic status, individual modernity, and economic literacy have a positive and significant effect on consumer rationality; (2) socioeconomic status and individual modernity have a positive and significant effect on economic literacy; and (3) socioeconomic status and individual modernity have a positive and significant effect on consumer rationality through economic literacy of millennial generation.
Keywords: Socioeconomic status, individual modernity, economic literacy, consumer rationality, millennial generation.
Status Sosial Ekonomi, Modernitas Individu, Literasi Ekonomi, dan Rasionalitas Konsumen Generasi Milenial
Abstrak
Kajian ini didesain untuk mengungkap pengaruh status sosial ekonomi, modernitas individu, dan literasi ekonomi terhadap rasionalitas konsumen generasi milenial, baik secara langsung maupun tidak langsung. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan kuantitatif, dan dirancang sebagai kajian eksplanatori. Kajian ini mengambil informasi dari 362 sampel secara proportional random sampling dari 3867 mahasiswa generasi milenial yang tersebar di 10 fakultas, dan 149 prodi dalam lingkup Universitas Negeri Makassar. Data dikumpulkan melalui angket yang telah diuji validitas dan reliabilitasnya, kemudian dianalisis menggunakan analisis Structural Equation Modeling. Hasil kajian ini menunjukkan bahwa (1) status sosial ekonomi, modernitas individu, dan literasi ekonomi berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap rasionalitas konsumen; (2) status sosial ekonomi dan modernitas individu berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap literasi ekonomi; dan (3) status sosial ekonomi dan modernitas individu berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap rasionalitas konsumen melalui literasi ekonomi generasi milenial.
Kata kunci:Status sosial ekonomi, modernitas individu, literasi ekonomi, rasionalitas konsumen, generasi milenial.
... A conference held in Florence at the European University Institute in 2018 brought together key scholars from all over the world. The results were published in a special issue of The Journal of Consumer Policy in 2020 (Mathios et al., 2020). The different bits and pieces, the three regional studies and a complementary analysis of the globalisation of consumer law provide new insights in a policy field which has been gaining ever more importance not least because of the ever stronger importance of private consumption in economies around the world. ...
This Special Issue has a long history. It goes back to a conference in July 2017 organized by Cláudia Lima Marques in Porto Alegre Brazil, the first of the Center of European and German Studies (CDEA–DAAD). Cláudia Lima Marques managed to bring together consumer lawyers from many South American States. From there it was a long way down to find support for a special issue, to incentivize colleagues and to get at least some of the papers translated from Spanish into English. Here, Laís Bernstein laid the ground, in both substance and procedure. In 2018, Maria Ana Barata stepped in and organized the process of discussion with the authors in Spanish and Portuguese. The various rounds of debate finally led to a successful outcome. That is why Maria Ana Barata deserves to be the lead author in the introduction. All this would not have sufficed if Christopher Goddard had not brought the mixture of non–native English, German, Portuguese and Spanish into a readable format. Hans–W. Micklitz accompanied conceptualization of the conference and the making of the Special Issue from beginning to end.
... A growing body of research studies are confirming the relations between anti-consumption patterns and increased personal well-being (Hüttel et al. 2020;Lee and Ahn 2016;Seegebarth et al. 2016). Further findings in this direction might support the implementation of anticonsumption in broader contexts, as well-being is a universal goal of consumer policy (Mathios et al. 2020). Nevertheless, additional research is needed regarding the causes, development, and effects of anti-and pro-consumption as conflicting motivational paths to personal well-being. ...
As overconsumption has negative effects on ecological balance, social equality, and individual well-being, reducing consumption levels among the materially affluent is an emerging strategy for sustainable development. Today's youth form a crucial target group for intervening in unsustainable overconsumption habits and for setting the path and ideas on responsible living. This article explores young people's motivations for engaging in three behavioural patterns linked to anti-consumption (voluntary simplicity, collaborative consumption, and living within one's means) in relation to sustainability. Applying a qualitative approach, laddering interviews reveal the consequences and values behind the anti-consumption behaviours of young people of ages 14 to 24 according to a means-end chains analysis. The findings highlight potential for and the challenges involved in motivating young people to reduce material levels of consumption for the sake of sustainability. Related consumer policy tools from the fields of education and communication are identified. This article provides practical implications for policy makers, activists, and educators. Consumer policies may strengthen anti-consumption among young people by addressing individual benefits, enabling reflection on personal values, and referencing credible narratives. The presented insights can help give a voice to young consumers, who struggle to establish themselves as key players in shaping the future consumption regime.
The Sale of Goods Directive and the Digital Content and Services Directive were transposed into the Slovene legal system with the new Consumer Protection Act in 2022. This contribution assesses whether and how sustainability goals have been internalised in consumer contract law and policy in Slovenia, particularly in the context of the changes introduced with the Sale of Goods Directive. It focuses on remedies for non-conformity of goods and services, while also examining the obligatory guarantee for technical products, which is a distinctive measure found in the Consumer Protection Act. The current state of play heavily relies on an awareness-raising model and the empowered, eco-friendly consumer, who is expected to purchase eco-friendly goods and resort to eco-friendly remedies in cases of non-conformity. These measures could be further strengthened by encouraging repair and self-repair, supporting replacement with refurbished goods, and extending guarantee periods to promote the production of more durable goods. The contribution identifies the obligatory guarantee as the most sustainability-friendly concept in Slovenian consumer sales law. In particular, it governs repair as the primary remedy and includes provisions on the availability of spare parts and access to repair services. This framework could serve as a model for the system of remedies for non-conforming goods at the EU level.
The study compares consumer rights awareness and the frequency of their complaints between
Croatia, Germany, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The research hypotheses highlight significant differences
between the countries. Secondary data collection was realized using the VOSviewer application, with
Scopus and Web of Science databases as sources. A survey questionnaire was conducted on a sample of 120
respondents, after which the obtained data were analysed using one-way ANOVA analysis for each individual
hypothesis. The results show that awareness of rights and the number of complaints is most developed among
consumers in Germany, followed by Croatia, and then Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This article analyses the relationship between Islam and consumer policy in the domain of consumer credit and over-indebtedness in six countries in the Arabian Gulf. The findings indicate that Islamic societies are distinct policymaking environments and share similarities in the development of consumer credit and policies relating to debt prevention and debt discharge. However, several differences are also observable that reflect complex variations in the social, political, historical, and economic trajectories of each country. A dilemma for policymakers is how to reconcile greater levels of consumer credit and over-indebtedness with the requirements of Islam. Policy responses have been a mix of legislative change and soft law. The UAE is the only country that has introduced an insolvency law for natural persons. Discriminating between the citizens and expatriates is a feature of consumer policy in all countries.
The original version of this article unfortunately contains incorrect author name.
The United Nations set a milestone in the development of consumer law when it adopted the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection in 1985 (UNGCP), establishing for the first time a set of international consumer law principles. Since then, with the emergence of the digital era, the landscape has experienced dramatic changes, and consumers have been facing an expanding range of global challenges, especially in the financial services sector. To reflect this changing landscape, new provisions were added by revised Guidelines in 1999 and again in 2015, which included recommendations on good business practices, financial protection and e-commerce. However, the Guidelines are only soft law provisions, as they are not legally binding on Member States. The question therefore arises of how effective they can be in promoting consumer law at the national and global levels. This article will argue that a comprehensive international consumer law framework is essential in the current context, and that there has been some advancement towards this since the adoption of the Guidelines. However, while the United Nations is playing a unique role in promoting an inclusive and broad consumer protection approach, it sometimes lacks the legal powers and resources to ensure the full effectiveness of its Guidelines. The article thus examines the evolution of consumer protection at the international level, assessing the legal landscape and key players in the field. It outlines the increasing involvement of the United Nations in the area of consumer protection, analysing the core features of the revised Guidelines and their implications, and concludes by suggesting avenues for future development.
The aim of the present paper is to contribute to the on-going discussion, both in legal theory and in comparative law, concerning the status of Central Europe and its delimitation from other legal regions in Europe, notably Romano-Germanic Western Europe but also Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The paper adopts the methodological perspective of critical legal geography, understood as a strand of critical jurisprudence laying at the interstices of spatial justice studies, critical geography, comparative law, sociology of law and legal history. The paper proceeds by identifying the notion of Central Europe with reference to a specific list of countries, then proposes a number of objective criteria for delimitng Central Europe and applies them in order to highlight the difference between Central Europe and other adjacent legal regions. Following that, the paper enquires as to whether Central Europe should be deemed to be a ‘legal family’, a ‘legal union’ or simply a ‘legal space’ or ‘space of legal culture’.
Increasing effort has been invested in the internationalization of consumer law. Some of the recent huge global consumer law–related scandals (e.g., Dieselgate, Facebook) demonstrate the rising relevance of and the need for international consumer law. This paper argues that the efforts towards the internationalization of consumer law should focus, first, on the establishment of globally accepted minimum standards of consumer protection (as it has been done through the United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection) and, second, on the development and facilitation of cooperation as a necessary prerequisite for the efficient protection of consumers (as it has been initiated by the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network), rather than on the harmonization of substantive consumer law. This is not only because coordination among diverse countries in the area of consumer protection is easier to achieve in practice through a policy approach rather than substantive harmonization, but also because coordination in practice is an instrument that, as it stands now, is capable of providing a higher level of protection to consumers than substantive harmonization.
A key change since the financial crisis of 2008 is the internationalization of interest in consumer finance. International institutions monitor household credit because of its impact on financial stability and market expansion. Macroprudential concerns drove this interest, resulting in a sea change in approaches to consumer credit regulation in many jurisdictions. This article critically analyses the emerging international policy paradigm, contrasting pre-and post-crisis regulatory approaches and highlighting continuing tensions about key policy choices. It then uses two recent sites of contestation, debt adjustment and the regulation of high-cost credit to demostrate the persistence of conflict over the positioning of consumers within an emergent stability focused paradigm of financial consumer protection.
The role of consumers as citizens contributing to a circular economy must be seen as part of a broader policy mix aimed at stimulating sustainable production on the supply side of the market, and sustainable consumption on the demand side. Consumers can be active contributors to a circular economy through their actions on the demand side, and EU law has sought to facilitate environmentally-friendly consumer choices through information rights. Further reaching measures can however be envisaged whereby sustainability aims can be taken into account when shaping consumer law. Thus, consumers may be stimulated to opt for repair or to engage in shared use of products through “servitization.”
We are entering into an era of new technological possibilities. Many benefits will be derived for consumers from the development of data and computer-driven innovation. We will have new products and services and new ways of making and supplying goods and services.Without wanting to inhibit innovation, this article calls for the legal system to remain committed to an ideology and legal framework that supports consumer protection. It will counsel against assuming that the law should give way unduly to the technology agenda, whilst accepting that adaptations should be made and also that there should be a critical review of whether traditional forms of regulation are needed in the Fourth Industrial Age.
This article argues that the international protection of consumers should be a global policy in the twenty-first century, since consumers are important actor of the globalization. But beside the UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection (UNGCP) from 1985, revised in 1999 and 2015, there is no other universal – or “global” – legal instrument (either soft or hard law) on consumer protection. In opposite to environmental law, there is no single global convention or binding international legal instrument on consumer protection issues. The article analyses the role of South America with regard to the promotion of international consumer law and two efforts of the Brazilian Government to enhance the international protection of consumers, in Mercosur and at the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and the chances of their success as a future hard or soft law. The main problem discussed in this article is whether the current international protection of consumers is a global policy or a mere regional or national policy, which contributes for a fragmented picture of the consumer protection worldwide.
Since the appearance of consumer law, its norm production landscape has been highly diversified and fragmented among the countries. The features of “lawlessness in some sectors” and “the lack of efficiency and effectiveness of national legal systems” give rise to the proliferation of norm producing originated by other bodies such as international organizations, industries, traders and even hybrid entities composing the public, the private and the civil society. There are many variations and differences in consumer law and policy between the Global North and the Global South. In recent years, harmonization of standards, codes of conduct and good practices have already taken place through international organizations and global businesses. In relation to harmonization of consumer laws among different countries, there have been skeptical views regarding such feasibility taking into account varying levels of institutional development. Thomas Bernauer explains “variation of consumer protection standards across countries may be a source of trade disputes.” Starting from the past decade, harmonization of consumer law has been achieved or at least advocated at regional levels. Harmonization easily starts within a region since regional integration creates opportunities for approximation of legal infrastructures. The EU is a very successful case in harmonizing consumer laws further guaranteed by a strong judicial system. In Latin America and in Asia, harmonization projects are ongoing and similar initiatives have also been supported. Whilst acknowledging the existing fragmentation and variations of consumer law worldwide, the author highlights the converging environment of consumer protection due to challenges brought by the globalization and advocates the feasibility of the harmonization approach from the perspective of a dynamically emerging and transitional economy such as China. At the outset, it explores the underpinnings of the consumer law which is a fairly modern legal intervention. China, like other countries, has been modernizing its consumer law by adopting a human-centred, rights-centred and social values-centred approach. Then, it examines the more important role played by emerging countries, particularly in areas such as global B2C e-commerce, telecommunication, financial services and mass tourism, and examines international dialogues and cooperation with active participation by the developing countries including China. There is a need for harmonization of consumer laws in the Mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong regions. China has made some progress on its own, but achieving harmonization in the wider region presents particular challenges. The author hopes that the harmonization would be achieved not only by creating consistency of rules but also by coordinating enforcement across borders. In conclusion, the author seems optimistic for a possible universal model law, which contains the minimum legal requirements and standards of consumer protection and mechanisms to strengthen cross-border cooperation to maximize the harmonization of consumer protection worldwide.
The theme of fragmentation versus convergence of consumer law has relevance for Africa, inter alia because the African Continental Free Trade Area is foreseen to become a single continental market. Fragmentation of consumer law within one legal system and across legal systems is inevitable. Several types of hyper-vulnerable consumers require special protection. Drafters and interpreters of consumer legislation should remember that the majority of African consumers are hyper-vulnerable. Consumer legislation attuned to this reality needs special reference to the needs of such consumers. More resources should be allocated to the protection of hyper-vulnerable consumers, including through proactive enforcement. The informal economy may require some special rules, but the rules on quality of products should mostly remain the same. More resources should be targeted at enforcing safety standards and rooting out counterfeit goods and creative ways found to bring consumers in the informal economy under the protection of consumer law. Fragmentation of sources of consumer law in Africa and at the level of enforcement agencies is also considered. Even if rules are harmonized across legal systems, fragmentation is inevitable, inter alia due to different interpretations by local agencies. An attempt at some convergence has benefits, but cogent arguments against harmonization exist. Some realities in the Global South militate against harmonization. There is greater potential for some level of harmonization where there is a real cross-border interest, such as in e-commerce, travel, and tourism. When convergence is considered, the reasons behind current divergence should be researched to establish the potential for convergence.
The correct article title is presented above.
Terms of service of on-line platforms too often contain clauses that are potentially unfair to the consumer. We present an experimental study where machine learning is employed to automatically detect such potentially unfair clauses. Results show that the proposed system could provide a valuable tool for lawyers and consumers alike.
Book available here: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781785366604/9781785366604.xml
Consumer law is worthy of greater academic attention at a time when many new questions arise and old ones need new answers. This unique handbook takes the reader on a journey through existing literature, research questions and methods. It builds on the state of the art to offer a springboard for jumping to the heart of contemporary issues and equips researchers with a starter’s kit to weave together rich traditions, ranging from socio-economics to behavioural analysis.
In Rethinking EU Consumer Law, the authors analyse the development of EU consumer law on the basis of a number of clear themes, which are then traced through specific areas. Recurring themes include the artificiality of the EU's consumer image, the problems created by the drive towards maximum harmonisation, and the unexpected effects EU consumer law has had on national law. The book argues that EU consumer law has the potential to enhance the protection of consumers throughout the EU and could offer a model for consumer law elsewhere in the world, but in order to unlock this potential, there needs to be a rethink with regard to the EU's approach to consumer law and policy.
Our central claim in this rejoinder is that experimentalist forms of organization in making regulatory rules, organizing social services, and articulating constitutional norms arise and diffuse as the problem that the actors and the state face shifts from ignorance to uncertainty. We argue that this has consequences for forms of accountability and for the conception and organization of democracy and constitutionalism. The EU, founded by diverse states in a period of continuing uncertainty, intensified by growing interdependence, proves to be a natural laboratory for observing urgent efforts to adjust to this new situation, and the symposium focuses on developments there. The symposium has brought us to see that there is more common ground in these debates than prior exchanges may have suggested. We therefore emphasize convergence on large points, while underscoring and, we hope, clarifying persistent differences, with the aim of encouraging the joint exploration of them already underway, in part explicitly, in part implicitly.
KeywordsTransnational consumer law-International consumer law-Services-Goods
Each and every reform in countries of Eastern Europe and South East Europe, as well as in Russia and Central Asia, was and has to be executed within an area of tension of three dimensions – the socialist path of dependency, the growing national identity and the international influence. Starting with the socialist path, apart from the substantial law, which mostly involved special legal acts, one has to consider the institutional setting of functions, relevant within the consumer protection. These settings had and have influence on the design and implementation of consumer protection in former socialist systems. With regard to national identity, at least within the legal community, there was a tendency to establish its own basic laws, e.g., civil codes. In order to embed consumer protection in these legal settings, it was necessary that new civil codes provide the framework for contractual relations in general. This includes fighting with new national pride for their own system and a desire to protect their own traditions, where consumer protection is partly seen as an intervention in the freedom of contract. Finally, international influence is visible in all Eastern countries. The 1990s combined competition between common law and continental law but also included considerable dependency on international experts. Hence, they act more as consultancies rather than being driven by enthusiasm.
Cambridge Core - Contract Law - ASEAN Consumer Law Harmonisation and Cooperation - by Luke Nottage
The author describes the mismatch between the twentieth-century consumer law and twenty-first-century market developments, qualified by globalization and digitalization. She calls for a digital planet proof consumer policy, which needs to focus on strong enforcement of consumer rights, among other things via international and cross-sector networks of enforcement agencies.
This article aims to conceptualize the current and emerging global governance regime on consumer protection. Although consumer protection laws have until recently been a feature at the national level, often as a result of increased standard of living, the number of cross-border challenges has grown and there is a shift from the national and regional levels to the global stage. International consumer protection combines issues of law, governance and trade. Hitherto, the internationalization of consumer law has been primarily through soft law most notably, the revised United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP) of 2015. One important feature of the UNGCP is the creation of an international institutional machinery under the auspices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to oversee the implementation of the Guidelines.
While the different positive and negative impacts of digitalization for consumers’ everyday lives gain much attention from both policy-makers and academia, the question on how digital technologies can be applied to better attain consumer policy goals has so far earned comparatively little consideration. This paper endeavours to fill this gap by analysing the potential of what this paper calls consumer protection technologies. With this term, digital technologies are described that are used to foster consumer policy objectives. The paper then argues that these new digital technologies can significantly contribute to the attainment of priority consumer policy outcomes, namely consumer protection, consumer empowerment as well as consumer law and rights enforcement. Yet, both more awareness of consumer policy actors and academics for the potential of these digital technologies as well as a systematic review of consumer protection technologies are needed.
In modern markets, many companies offer so-called "free" services and monetize consumer data they collect through those services. This paper argues that consumer law and data protection law can usefully complement each other. Data protection law can also inform the interpretation of consumer law. Using consumer rights, consumers should be able to challenge excessive collection of their personal data. Consumer organizations have used consumer law to tackle data protection infringements. The interplay of data protection law and consumer protection law provides exciting opportunities for a more integrated vision on "data consumer law".
The topic of the paper is based on a study done for GIZ, the German developmental agency concerning the improvement of consumer protection in India by the combined use of preventive and remedial justice which is possible under the Indian Consumer Protection Act (CPA) but not adequately implemented. The paper takes as a starting point Hans Micklitz’ concept of a “movable system of consumer law”, developed in the EU context whereby remedies under unfair commercial practices and unfair contract terms legislation should be applied in combination and not be separated into different “legal boxes” each following its own logic. The consequences of such an approach for rethinking Indian consumer law are presented with some reform proposals to be undertaken by the Indian legislator.
What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers, and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket. In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British empire to the present. Astonishingly wide-ranging and richly detailed, Empire of Things explores how we have come to live with so much more, how this changed the course of history, and the global challenges we face as a result.
The Euro crisis brought to the fore a larger and hitherto invisible structural problem as to the relationship between the European Union's centre and its periphery. I am arguing that the concerns of the peripheral EU countries, of their workers and companies are difficult to argue in the existing ideology and that this contributes to the reproduction of the existing hierarchies in the EU. The ideology of the EU legal profession is one of the centre of the EU, and this importantly determines how harm is understood in EU law and which doctrines are present in legal thinking. For example, there is a presence of social dumping, but an absence of goods dumping in the EU legal vernacular. I argue that the centre-periphery relationship is structured by legal entitlements, that the overtly political discourse of left and right is analytically insufficient and explain the phenomenon of conceptualism of contemporary legal thought.
The European Court of Justice's (ECJ's) jurisprudence of fundamental rights in cases such as Schmidberger and Omega extends the court's jurisdiction in ways that compete with that of Member States in matters of visceral concern. And just as the Member States require a guarantee that the ECJ respect fundamental rights rooted in national tradition, so the ECJ insists that international organisations respect rights constitutive of the EU. The demand of such guarantees reproduces between the ECJ and the international order the kinds of conflicting jurisdictional claims that have shadowed the relation between the ECJ and the courts of the Member States. This article argues that the clash of jurisdiction is being resolved by the formation of a novel order of coordinate constitutionalism in which Member States, the ECJ, the European Court of Human Rights and other international tribunals or organisations agree to defer to one another's decisions, provided those decisions respect mutually agreed essentials. This coordinate order extends constitutionalism beyond its home territory in the nation state through a jurisprudence of mutual monitoring and peer review that carefully builds on national constitutional traditions, but does not create a new, encompassing sovereign entity. The doctrinal instruments by which the plural constitutional orders are, in this way, profoundly linked without being integrated are variants of the familiar Solange principles of the German Constitutional Court, by which each legal order accepts the decisions of the others, even if another decision would have been more consistent with the national constitution tradition, ‘so long as’ those decisions do not systematically violate its own understanding of constitutional essentials. The article presents the coordinate constitutional order being created by this broad application of the Solange doctrine as an instance, and practical development, of what Rawls called an overlapping consensus: agreement on fundamental commitments of principle—those essentials which each order requires the others to respect—does not rest on mutual agreement on any single, comprehensive moral doctrine embracing ideas of human dignity, individuality or the like. It is precisely because the actors of each order acknowledge these persistent differences, and their continuing influence on the interpretation of shared commitments in particular conflicts, that they reserve the right to interpret essential principles, within broad and shared limits, and accord this right to others. The embrace of variants of the Solange principles by many coordinate courts, in obligating each to monitor the others' respect for essentials, creates an institutional mechanism for articulating and adjusting the practical meaning of the overlapping consensus.
This article argues that current widespread characterisations of EU governance as multi-level and networked overlook the emergent architecture of the EU's public rule making. In this architecture, framework goals (such as full employment, social inclusion, ‘good water status’, a unified energy grid) and measures for gauging their achievement are established by joint action of the Member States and EU institutions. Lower-level units (such as national ministries or regulatory authorities and the actors with whom they collaborate) are given the freedom to advance these ends as they see fit. But in return for this autonomy, they must report regularly on their performance and participate in a peer review in which their results are compared with those pursuing other means to the same general ends. Finally, the framework goals, performance measures, and decision-making procedures themselves are periodically revised by the actors, including new participants whose views come to be seen as indispensable to full and fair deliberation. Although this architecture cannot be read off from either Treaty provisions or textbook accounts of the formal competences of EU institutions, the article traces its emergence and diffusion across a wide range of policy domains, including telecommunications, energy, drug authorisation, occupational health and safety, employment promotion, social inclusion, pensions, health care, environmental protection, food safety, maritime safety, financial services, competition policy, state aid, anti-discrimination policy and fundamental rights.
forthcoming). Personalised law
- O Ben-Shahar
- A Porat
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Squaring the circle? Reconciling consumer law and the circular economy
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Three letters on the law of peoples and the European Union
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Squaring the circle? Reconciling consumer law and the circular economy
- HW Micklitz
- B Kersbilck
- E Terryn