International Perspectives on Consumers'' Access to Justice

Consumer protection law in the age of globalisation poses new challenges for policy-makers. Leading scholars outline key problems faced in adopting consumer laws to the global marketplace. Topics include standard form contracts, the legal challenges posed by mass infection (such as CJD), consumers and services, and consumer bankruptcy law.

Consumer protection law in the age of globalisation poses new challenges for policy-makers. This book highlights the difficulties of framing regulatory responses to the problem of consumers' access to justice in the new international economy. The growth of international consumer transactions in the wake of technological change and the globalisation of markets suggests that governments can no longer develop consumer protection law in isolation from the international legal arena. Leading scholars consider the broader theme of access to justice from socio-legal, law and economics perspectives. Topics include standard form contracts, the legal challenges posed by mass infections (such as mad-cow disease and CJD), ombudsman schemes, class actions, alternative dispute resolution, consumer bankruptcy, conflict of laws, and cross-border transactions. This book demonstrates that advancing and achieving access to justice for consumers proves to be a challenging, and sometimes elusive, task.