When consumers buy goods or services, they need to know that the producers will provide them with high quality and safe products. In addition, they need assurance that the producers will not mislead them or make false claims. Consumers can also be protected by the governments of the countries where they live or by other regulatory bodies.
The fundamental principles of consumer defense are the right to information, the right to safety and health, and the right to protect against the abuse of a product’s features or its use. These rights are a basic part of the constitution of any country. They are also recognized by the international agreements and by the guidelines for consumer protection that have been adopted by the United Nations since 1985.
This article describes the role of consumer defense in promoting and protecting these fundamental rights for the benefit of all people, and in doing so, it also discusses some of the current challenges facing this important public interest area. It also suggests some recommendations for strengthening this essential public protection and its application in the digital age.
First, it is important to recognize the importance of the social, political, and economic environment in which protective legislation develops. The evolution of consumer protection legislation has been fueled by the desire of the State to defend the interests of its population. It must be viewed in tandem with the provisions of the first Article of the National Constitution, which states that the State defends the interest of its citizens and promotes respect for human dignity.
Second, it is important to understand the relationship between legal regulations and business practices. While legal protections may be strengthened through law, businesses can circumvent the laws in a variety of ways.
One way in which businesses circumvent legal protections is by drafting contracts that limit the remedies available to consumers, or even exclude them altogether. When this happens, it can make it more difficult for consumers to access justice in court. The problem is that these restrictions can be ineffective and do not necessarily serve the purpose of increasing protection.
Third, it is also important to understand how contract law can be used to enhance consumer protection. For example, by installing procedures securing access to justice and by providing increased remedies for the most common breaches of consumer contracts, such as failure to timely pay, contract law can offer additional protection for consumers.
However, the difficulty in implementing these types of measures is that, for the most part, they run into the same problems that plague contract law: businesses can draft contracts that limit the remedies available to consumers or that eliminate them entirely.
Whether this is a matter of enforcing the rules of a national contract law or promoting consumer protection on a global level, it is important to understand that this approach does not always produce positive results for the general welfare. For instance, the use of choice of law clauses or mandatory arbitration clauses can create obstacles to access to justice for consumers, and the fact that these types of clauses are inherently unconscionable can have a harmful effect on the rights of vulnerable groups.