European Consumer Access to Justice Revisited

420 Pages·2015·4.488 MB·English

by  Stefan Wrbka

EuropEan ConsumEr aCCEss to
JustiCE rEvisitEd
European Consumer access to Justice revisited takes into account both
procedural and substantive law questions in order to give the term ‘access
to justice’ an enhanced meaning. specifically, it analyses developments
and recent trends in Eu consumer law and aims to evaluate their poten-
tial for increasing consumer confidence in the cross-border market. via
a critical assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the means
initiated at the Eu level, the author highlights possible detriments to
the cross-border business-to-consumer (B2C) market. to remedy this,
he introduces an alternative method of creating a legal framework that
facilitates B2C transactions in the Eu – ‘access to justice 2.0’.
Stefan Wrbka is associate professor for European and Comparative
private Law at Kyushu university, Fukuoka, Japan. His principal field of
academic research concerns various aspects of consumer protection law,
with a focus on developments within the European union.

EuropEan ConsumEr

aCCEss to JustiCE
rEvisitE d
stEFan WrBKa
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First published 2015
printed in the united Kingdom by Clays, st ives plc
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Wrbka, stefan, 1976– author.
European consumer access to justice revisited / stefan Wrbka.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-107-07237-4 (hardback)
1. Consumer protection–Law and legislation–European union countries.
2. due process of law–European union countries. 3. Legal services–European
union countries. i. title.
KJE6577.W73 2014
343.2407′1–dc23
2014032250
isBn 978-1-107-07237-4 Hardback
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rie, Lisa and Leo

ContEnts
List of tables xii
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Abbreviations xvii
part i Setting the scene: access to justice 2.0 1
1 At the very outset 3
2 Access to justice 2.0: breaking it into pieces 5
access 5
Justice 5
non-valuing justice 6
value-oriented justice 6
Hans Kelsen 8
aristotle 10
John rawls 13
value-oriented justice – key observations for further
arguments 16
access to justice 18
taken literally 18
access to justice in the course of time 19
The more recent traditional discussion at the Eu level 25
2.0 27
access to justice 2.0 27
part ii Procedural law – the traditional pillar of access
to justice 2.0 31
3 A brief outline of developments at the pan-EU level 33
vii
viii Contents
4 Prime examples 40
The injunctions directive (1998/2009) 40
The Legal aid directive (2003) 53
The regulation on Consumer protection Cooperation
(2004) 60
The small Claims regulation (2007) 71
alternative dispute resolution (2008/2013) 83
initial adr trends at the Eu level and the 2008 mediation
directive 83
The adr directive (2013) 90
The odr regulation (2013) 97
5 Compensatory collective redress – the next step? 102
The road towards the Green paper on Consumer
Collective redress 102
From the Green paper on Consumer Collective redress to
the Commission’s Collective redress
recommendation 109
multilayer interests 118
multilayer interests – a definition 118
multilayer interests in the debate on collective redress 121
scattered damages v. mass damages 124
The answer(s) 132
General remarks 132
scattered damages 133
mass damages 140
Further questions 143
6 Where do we go from here? 150
part iii Substantive law – complementing access to
justice 2.0 153
7 Widening the scope of the value-oriented justice
discussion 155
8 Substantive consumer law making over time 162