Do Consumers and Businesses Need a New Architecture of Consumer Law? A Thought Provoking Impulse

Summary:

This article discusses the need for a new architecture of consumer law. The thesis adopted in the report can be put in a nutshell: the dynamic of consumer law cannot be reconciled with the stability of the Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch (German Civil Code, henceforth BGB).

The article argues that the dropping of consumer law from the BGB is demanded and desirable. Behind the thesis of the article lie fundamental assumptions and preconceptions, on the interaction of consumer law and the BGB respectively and about the political-social character of consumer law which clashes with a system and doctrines based on the BGB.

Suppositions about the Europeanization and internationalization of consumer law, conflict with the national character of each civil legal order. These processes undermine the protective character of consumer law by ceding the concept of the ‘consumer’ to the Single European Market and the global market. The article argues that consumer law has to be discussed related to private law with public law rules.