The constitutional approach to basic consumer rights

wareness of consumer rights as basic rights began when US President John F. Kennedy outlined in his special message to the United States Congress, on 15 March 1962, four fundamental consumer rights. *1 From a Constitutional point of view, this declaration of certain consumer rights as ‘fundamental rights’ does not in itself have any specific value. Nevertheless, the speech attracted widespread attention elsewhere, descriptive of, and contributing to, the emergence of new social and legal phenomena.

Over the last 50 years, consumer law has developed considerably, influenced by growth in trade and wealth, globalisation, and the strengthening of the consumer movement. As a result of these trends, numerous regulations have been adopted to balance the greater power of professional suppliers over individuals.

Today, we have put behind us the era of declarative policies and embrace consumer rights at the highest Constitutional level, both in the EU’s primary law and in several EU member states. At the same time, the discussion of the substantive meaning of consumer rights as a new type of fundamental rights has been rather modest in the specialist literature. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which consumer rights are recognised as fundamental rights at the international and national level, and to analyse whether the declaration of basic consumer rights as Constitutional rights can improve the standard of consumer protection or is merely a symbolic instrument, not associated with any major changes.