Conceptual framework and system of the Model law of the Commonwealth of Independent States “On Protection of Consumers”

Abstract

The article substantiates the need to improve the model consumer legislation of the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which has become brewing in connection with fundamental transformational changes in social life, development of electronic commerce, the development of new standards upon sale of goods, works, services to consumers. The paper draws attention to the differences in processes of approximation (harmonisation) of the national legislations of the EU member states and approximation of laws of the CIS member states, notes the specifics of international cooperation within the CIS. Before proceeding to the presentation of one of the possible alternate for improving the CIS model law on protection of consumers, authors analyze the state of modern legal regulation in the European Union, solitary states of the Western Europe, the CIS member states. As a result, it is concluded that it is possible to take into account the achievements of foreign lawmaking in the development of regulatory decisions in a number of areas of consumer protection: extension of scope of consumer’s legislation, formulating additional guarantees for protecting consumer rights in the field of e-commerce, developing a system of cross-border consumer’s disputes, and others. The structure of the act of consumer’s legislation proposed by the authors is based on the focus of the Russian Federation on the codification of consumer’s legislation, as well as on the modern needs for a uniform complex normative legal act that conflate both general issues of regulation of consumer’s relations and special provisions relating to the protection of consumer rights in certain areas of social relations (electronic commerce, sale of food, pharmaceutical products, housing and communal services, tourism services) or consumers belonging to socially vulnerable groups of the population (minors, the elderly, the disabled).