Literature Review on Analytical Frameworks

Background Paper to Creating Confident Consumers

May 2003

Previous Page / Table of Contents / Next Page

The Goals of Consumer Law

Writing in Canada, Cayne and Trebilcock (1973) observed:

Even the most casual observer of contemporary legal literature could not help but note the proliferation of consumer protection rules. The growing importance of consumerism has not yet, however, resulted in a concise statement of the goals which these rules are designed, or should be designed, to achieve. (p396)

They go on to say that for realistic goals to be set, they must be capable of justification against a broad conceptual framework.

Writing in Australia, Duggan (1991) also refers to a proliferation of consumer protection statutory initiatives and states that "there is no clearly articulated philosophy of consumer protection". Further, taken as a whole, the initiatives that exist are "marred by a failure to be sufficiently explicit about values and to focus sharply enough on objectives" and, further, consumer protection lacks a "robust theory".

Previous Page / Table of Contents / Next Page