Proposals on consumer rights reforms endorsed by Supreme People's Court of China

中国最高人民法院支持消费者保护法律体系改革提议

An article on reforms to consumer rights written by Dr Ying Yu, OBOR Deputy Director and head of the FLJS Consumer Rights in China Programme (社会法学研究所,"中国消费者权益项目"主任), was published in full on 21 August 2015 by the official newspaper of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China.

This is a critical moment for the Chinese government to offer an effective consumer redress scheme, which could not only improve public satisfaction and the regulatory function of the state, but also contribute to both economic and political stability.

The article assesses recent reforms made by the European Union to improve the ways in which consumers can resolve disputes, and presents proposals for how it might be applied in China. Dr Yu focuses on new legislation covering the resolution of disputes through alternative routes to the courts, as well as online dispute resolution currently being implemented throughout Europe.

She considers how these measures might be adapted to help provide better redress in China, where current provisions to protect over a billion of the world’s consumers are lagging behind the huge growth in consumer spending. Dr Yu, who founded of the Centre for the Policy and Law on Global Consumer Protection at Wuhan University, which remains the only international institute for consumer law in China, said of the publication: "This is a critical moment for the Chinese government to offer an effective consumer redress scheme, which could not only improve public satisfaction and the regulatory function of the state, but also contribute to both economic and political stability."

The article outlines the recent EU Consumer Protection Law from the three aspects of substantive law, conflict laws, and the latest reform on procedure law, before making a number of proposals to the SPC on judicial reform.