International Consumer Protection at the United Nations: Towards Global Governance?

This article aims to conceptualize the current and emerging global governance regime on consumer protection. Although consumer protection laws have until recently been a feature at the national level, often as a result of increased standard of living, the number of cross-border challenges has grown and there is a shift from the national and regional levels to the global stage. International consumer protection combines issues of law, governance and trade. Hitherto, the internationalization of consumer law has been primarily through soft law most notably, the revised United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP) of 2015. One important feature of the UNGCP is the creation of an international institutional machinery under the auspices of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to oversee the implementation of the Guidelines.