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Frankenfood Free: Consumer Sovereignty, Federal Regulation, and Industry Control in Marketing and Choosing Food in the United States

Thomas O. McGarity

in Labeling Genetically Modified Food: The Philosophical and Legal Debate

This chapter explores the legal issues raised by the ongoing debates over whether foods containing genetically modified materials should, or even may, contain labels informing consumers of that fact. ... More

This chapter explores the legal issues raised by the ongoing debates over whether foods containing genetically modified materials should, or even may, contain labels informing consumers of that fact. Two broad legal issues predominate: (1) whether the law should require companies marketing foods to provide information concerning the presence of GM materials in those foods on the labels; and (2) whether the information that companies voluntarily include on food labels concerning the presence or absence of GM materials is misleading. An overarching legal issue is the constitutionality of any legal requirements imposed by Congress, a state legislature or a regulatory agency.While governmental authorities in Europe have required labeling, the Congress and the Food and Drug Administration in the United States have so far declined to do so. Furthermore, the FDA has suggested that it would be unlawful for manufacturers to label foods not containing genetically modified materials “GMO free,” because that would misleadingly suggest that they are somehow safer or more desirable. One court has even overturned a state requirement that milk containing a particular genetically modified hormone be so labeled as an unconstitutional violation of the free speech rights of manufacturers.This chapter explores the policy and legal issues arising from labeling foods containing genetically modified organisms and critiques the current U.S. approach. It then briefly explores four models for a labeling regime that could be enacted if Congress elects to do so in the future.Less

Clicking Away Rights in DNA: A Review of DTC Contracts

Andelka M Phillips

in Buying your Self on the Internet: Wrap Contracts and Personal Genomics

This chapter provides a summary of a review of the wrap contracts of DTC companies providing genetic tests for health purposes. It identifies a number of terms that are problematic from a consumer ... More

This chapter provides a summary of a review of the wrap contracts of DTC companies providing genetic tests for health purposes. It identifies a number of terms that are problematic from a consumer protection standpoint and argues that certain terms commonly included in DTC contracts are liked to be challengeable on the grounds of unfairness under UK law.Less

The EU Sales Directive: Analysis of an Encounter Between EU and Domestic Law

Lucinda Miller

in The Emergence of EU Contract Law: Exploring Europeanization

By way of examination of the implementation of the Sales Directive into French and English law, this chapter illustrates how EU Directives may trigger unexpected responses within Member States’ legal ... More

By way of examination of the implementation of the Sales Directive into French and English law, this chapter illustrates how EU Directives may trigger unexpected responses within Member States’ legal systems. With particular emphasis on the Directive’s approach to consumer remedies and the concept of conformity the chapter reveals how the encounter between European and domestic law may have ‘disintegrative’ effects at the national level. This does not bode well for harmonisation. The chapter suggests, however, that ‘disintegration’ and fragmentation need not be evaluated in negative terms since they provide opportunities for mutual transformation and learning. The chapter also assesses the proposal for a Consumer Rights Directive and the associated maximum harmonisation strategy which has come to the forefront of EU consumer policy in recent years. It concludes that the technique is fraught with difficulty in multi-level Europe.Less

Maximum versus Minimum Harmonization: Choosing between Unity and Diversity in the Search for the Soul of the Internal Market

Stephen Weatherill

in From Single Market to Economic Union: Essays in Memory of John A. Usher

This chapter takes a look at the debate surrounding the proper model of harmonization to select with regards to the consumer law field. It first studies consumer protection in the EU's legislation, ... More

This chapter takes a look at the debate surrounding the proper model of harmonization to select with regards to the consumer law field. It first studies consumer protection in the EU's legislation, and then considers the importance of harmonization within the consumer field. The next section addresses the issue of constitutional insincerity related to the story of ‘spillover’ in the EU. It also discusses maximum and minimum harmonization, the Committee's response to minimum harmonization, and the proposed Directive for consumer rights.Less

Rights

Alex Mold

in Making the patient-consumer: Patient organisations and health consumerism in Britain

The aim of this chapter is to explore the broader meaning and application of rights talk in connection with health from the 1970s to the early 1990s. It begins by considering the various ways in ... More

The aim of this chapter is to explore the broader meaning and application of rights talk in connection with health from the 1970s to the early 1990s. It begins by considering the various ways in which the language of rights was used in the context of health. The chapter then moves on to consider the application of such language, through attempts to introduce a Rights of Patients Bill. A selection of patient’s rights guides and charters are also analysed, and the chapter suggests that it was unclear whether these were addressed to the individual patient, or all patients. A more collective understanding of patients’ rights was exhibited by organisations such as the Community Rights Project, which aimed to enhance democracy and accountability within the NHS through the language of rights. The establishment of Department of Health’s The Patient’s Charter in 1991, however, undermined such collective conceptualisations of rights. Addressed to the individual patient rather than all patients, The Patient’s Charter was indicative not only of an individualised approach to patients’ rights, but of a wider shift in the conceptualisation of the patient as consumer and who could speak for this figure.Less

Consumer Protection in the Cloud

Chris Reed and Laura Edgar

in Cloud Computing Law

This chapter assesses consumer protection in the cloud. The majority of businesses seem to have recognised the EU consumer rights regime as setting out the standards of good business best practice ... More

This chapter assesses consumer protection in the cloud. The majority of businesses seem to have recognised the EU consumer rights regime as setting out the standards of good business best practice which a good business should achieve, and so reflect that regime in their terms and conditions. But a minority of online sellers and suppliers do not, and because the likelihood of consumers going to court to enforce their individual rights is so low, this minority group is unlikely to mend their ways. This has led to an increased focus on using public law rather than private law to enforce compliance with EU consumer rights. The EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) forbids misleading practices by businesses, and online businesses whose terms or practices deny the individual rights granted by law to consumers are increasingly facing enforcement action. The current focus is on well-known social media and sharing economy services, because success here sends a strong message to other, less visible, service suppliers. Cloud services are at present low on the list, partly because many consumer-facing cloud service providers are already largely compliant. The consumer service providers who are most at risk are those who are struggling to transition from a 'free' business model to a paid one.Less

The Debate Continues

Kathleen Gutman

in The Constitutional Foundations of European Contract Law: A Comparative Analysis

Chapter 6 outlines the ongoing activities taking place in the debate about European contract law and their bearing on the constitutional dimensions of European contract law. These activities comprise ... More

Chapter 6 outlines the ongoing activities taking place in the debate about European contract law and their bearing on the constitutional dimensions of European contract law. These activities comprise three main components: the Common Frame of Reference (CFR) project, the Commission’s plans for the review of the consumer acquis leading to the adoption of the Consumer Rights Directive, and the possible enactment of one or more optional instruments of contract law and the promotion of EU model contract terms, which has recently reached a crucial culmination stage with the Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on a Common European Sales Law (proposed CESL).Less

“Are You Free to Read, See, and Hear?”: Creating Consumer Rights out of the First Amendment, 1940s–1960s

Leigh Ann Wheeler

in How Sex Became a Civil Liberty

This chapter focuses on how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reinterpreted the First Amendment to develop a notion of media-related consumer rights from the 1940s to the 1960s. In reframing ... More

This chapter focuses on how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reinterpreted the First Amendment to develop a notion of media-related consumer rights from the 1940s to the 1960s. In reframing the First Amendment, ACLU leaders shifted their commitment from defending only matter created for educational, political, artistic, or intellectual purposes, to defending material produced purely for profit and pleasure. The chapter links the ACLU's attention to consumer rights to prewar developments, including Depression-era attention to consumers and consumption as causes of the economic downturn, along with the emergence of pressure groups that threatened consumer access to movies, books, and magazines. It also considers the ACLU's support for commercial producers of speech and its advocacy of a right that would significantly expand the boundaries of sexual civil liberties: the consumer's right to read, see, and hear. Finally, it discusses the ACLU's arguments for freedom of speech and privacy and how consumer rights affected its battle with the motion picture industry over the issue of self-censorship.Less

Consumer-Citizens: Inflation, Credit, and Taxing the Middle Classes, 1973–1985

in Waking from the Dream: Mexico's Middle Classes after 1968

This chapter examines the effects of inflation, which began increasing significantly and erratically in the early 1970s. It documents a changing economic relationship between the middle classes and ... More

This chapter examines the effects of inflation, which began increasing significantly and erratically in the early 1970s. It documents a changing economic relationship between the middle classes and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI), focusing on consumer credit, consumer rights, and taxation.Less

The Australian Consumer Data Right: The Promise of Open Data

Jamie Leach and Julie McKay

in Open Banking

In Chapter 10, “The Australian Consumer Data Right: The Promise of Open Data,” Jamie Leach, Regional Director of FDATA Australia & New Zealand and Founder of Open Data Australia and Julie McKay, ... More

In Chapter 10, “The Australian Consumer Data Right: The Promise of Open Data,” Jamie Leach, Regional Director of FDATA Australia & New Zealand and Founder of Open Data Australia and Julie McKay, Former Chapter Lead of FDATA Australia & New Zealand and former head of data strategy at Equifax Australia, explore how the Australian Open Banking regime is expected to develop within the broader framework of the Consumer Data Right. Unlike several other open banking countries, Australia is pursuing a read-only way of sharing data that does not allow for payment execution unlike in the European Union, but is pursuing an economy-wide approach to data sharing, beginning with the banking sector, then rolling out to the energy and telecom sectors, prior to possible further extensions. Leach and McKay explain how Australia through its Consumer Data Right intends to ultimately build a national open data economy. The authors explore the origin of open data in Australia and its serious consideration of requiring data reciprocity. They map the process for finalizing details of the open data framework. They also describe how industry is changing in anticipation, including the voluntary uptake of open banking APIs, for instance, in the accounting and bookkeeping sectors. They describe some of the key implementation challenges, including international coordination and also touch on potential opportunities for the Australian economy.Less

Consumer policy

Miriam Hartlapp, Julia Metz, and Christian Rauh

in Which Policy for Europe?: Power and Conflict inside the European Commission

The chapter summarizes 18 cases studies on Commission position formation in the field of consumer policy. It highlights how this rather young European policy area emancipates from purely market and ... More

The chapter summarizes 18 cases studies on Commission position formation in the field of consumer policy. It highlights how this rather young European policy area emancipates from purely market and competition based logics towards the active enhancement of individual consumer rights. Covering regulatory initiatives on contractual consumer rights, product safety, and food safety, the chapter shows that the responsible Directorates-General base their policy choices on demands from organized interests and political pressure from the wider public while being constrained by extant European law and the preferences of European member states. The resulting positions often clash in internal interactions. Here the tension between consumer and producer interests translates rather frequently into pronounced turf conflicts between the comparatively young DG SANCO and DGs MARKT, ENTR, and AGRI defending their more traditional regulatory approaches.Less

The Renegotiation of the Relationship between Consumers and Their Creditors

Mary Eschelbach Hansen and Bradley A. Hansen

in Bankrupt in America: A History of Debtors, Their Creditors, and the Law in the Twentieth Century

Pro-creditor garnishment law was a key driver of the bankruptcy rate for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, but it did not survive the consumer rights movement of the 1960s. By 1970, ... More

Pro-creditor garnishment law was a key driver of the bankruptcy rate for the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, but it did not survive the consumer rights movement of the 1960s. By 1970, Congress and the Supreme Court limited the ability of states to maintain and enforce pro-creditor collection laws. Chapter 5 shows that the federal restrictions on garnishment law, especially the Consumer Credit Protection Act, reduced the state-to-state variation in the bankruptcy rate and caused the national bankruptcy rate to level off. Although the growth of bankruptcy in the 1950s and 1960s led to calls for reform of federal bankruptcy law, the effort moved slowly. By the time recommendations for bankruptcy reform were made to Congress, bankruptcy rates were no longer regarded as a problem. Almost all of the changes to personal bankruptcy in the 1978 Bankruptcy Reform Act encouraged debtors to file.Less

Consumer thrift: Keynes, consumer rights and the new thrifty consumers

Alison Hulme

in A Brief History of Thrift

Examines how the context of the Great Depression saw the beginning of consumer rights organisations. Looks at the New Deal and how it taught the American people that not only was the thrift of the ... More

Examines how the context of the Great Depression saw the beginning of consumer rights organisations. Looks at the New Deal and how it taught the American people that not only was the thrift of the depression no longer necessary, but that it would actually harm recovery. Analyses how being thrifty went from saving, to consuming wisely and well, and how the consumer, not just the worker, was now all-important for the economic survival of a nation. Explores the influence of Keynes in this cultural change and the emergence of the citizen-consumer.Less

The Platform Economy: Regulatory Instruments

Vanessa Mak

in Legal Pluralism in European Contract Law

This chapter charts which rules concerning contracts and consumer protection have until now emerged in public and private regulation. These contain a mix of public regulation, co-regulation, codes of ... More

This chapter charts which rules concerning contracts and consumer protection have until now emerged in public and private regulation. These contain a mix of public regulation, co-regulation, codes of conduct, soft law projects to develop model rules, and reputational feedback systems. Also, online dispute resolution can in practice be a source of norms, as norms developed in this context are often through a feedback loop used to improve the quality of services offered by platform operators. Here, the chapter places the focus on the platform economy. Platforms themselves are actively working to provide mechanisms that can, at least partly, overcome the problems of enforcing consumer rights. They have an interest in securing trust between users who, even more than consumers in the offline world, are at a disadvantage in establishing the quality of goods and services and the reliability of their counterparty. Platforms therefore use mechanisms that can fill in a ‘regulatory void’.Less

Standard Terms in Consumer Contracts: The Challenges of Law Reform in English Law

Christian Twigg-Flesner

in Comparative Contract Law: British and American Perspectives

This chapter examines standard terms in consumer contracts in English law, and the challenges facing reform in this area. Beginning by examining the standard terms regulation which is now an ... More

This chapter examines standard terms in consumer contracts in English law, and the challenges facing reform in this area. Beginning by examining the standard terms regulation which is now an established part of the UK contractual landscape as a result of the influence of the EU, it considers both the law under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as well as how it can be further improved. It discusses ‘boilerplate terms’, which are used widely both in consumer and commercial contracts, and the issues they raise—such as the ‘battle of the forms’ problem in the commercial setting.Less

Teamsters, Turtles, and Tainted Toys

Andrew Ross

in Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times

This chapter looks at two particular strands of environmental and labor advocacy: the anti-consumerist and the anti-sweatshop movements. The record of attention to labor abuses within the history of ... More

This chapter looks at two particular strands of environmental and labor advocacy: the anti-consumerist and the anti-sweatshop movements. The record of attention to labor abuses within the history of the consumer rights movement confirms that there has been a longstanding dialogue between organized groups on both sides, but it is equally a history of missed opportunities. In return, labor advocates have been slow to question the dominant materialist lifestyle of a consumer civilization, preferring to promote ethical reforms in consumption patterns that will sustain the existing jobs of goods and service producers. As for the anti-consumer activists who evangelize extensive changes in lifestyle, trading, and modes of subsistence, they tend to see ethical consumption as little more than a way to greenwash the status quo. Moreover, they are not especially sensitive to the immediate needs of the working masses whose livelihoods are tied to the existing system.Less

Conclusion

Leigh Ann Wheeler

in How Sex Became a Civil Liberty

This concluding chapter reexamines the role played by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in changing sexual culture starting from it was founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin and Crystal Eastman. ... More

This concluding chapter reexamines the role played by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in changing sexual culture starting from it was founded in 1920 by Roger Baldwin and Crystal Eastman. It considers how ACLU and its leaders influenced ideas about civil liberties through their advocacy of issues such as privacy, sexual expression, reproductive choice, and consumer rights. It also discusses the many different ways the ACLU defended select individuals including authors and playwrights, as well as advocates of birth control and abortion, sex education, and nudism. Finally, it explains how the ACLU reinterpreted the First Amendment to include everyone who might want to “read, see, and hear”.Less

Human Rights Concerns in Biotechnology

Sreenivasulu N.S.

in Law Relating to Biotechnology

This chapter highlights the human rights concerns in biotechnology. In this regard, responses from the governments of the US, India, and EU have been mapped. Various international human rights ... More

This chapter highlights the human rights concerns in biotechnology. In this regard, responses from the governments of the US, India, and EU have been mapped. Various international human rights conventions and agreement have been analyzed in the context of biotechnology and connected human rights concerns. EU directive’s stand on human rights concerns, the US and Indian policy responses to biotechnology in the context of human rights are highlighted. Human rights issues connected with cloning, genetic research, and genetically modified (GM) foods have been highlighted. The concept of GM foods, its efficacy, acceptance and associated consumer rights, right to food, and such other human rights issues have been debated. Further, the right to health in the context of biotechnology and genetic research is discussed. The aim was to discuss and debate various human rights concerns involved in biotechnology research, development, innovation, use, and exploitation.Less

Energy Justice and Energy Transition in Australia: From Remote Access to Consumer Protection

Lee Godden

in Energy Justice and Energy Law

Australia is in energy transition despite a national policy supportive of fossil fuels. Regional and remote areas, however, remain dependent on fossil fuels, including diesel. Renewable energy is ... More

Australia is in energy transition despite a national policy supportive of fossil fuels. Regional and remote areas, however, remain dependent on fossil fuels, including diesel. Renewable energy is becoming accessible for some regional communities, due to renewable energy incentives. This chapter considers the energy transition in Australia through the energy justice lens. It analyses the distribution of benefits and burdens of energy activities upon remote Indigenous communities, and examines energy price impacts and consumer protection reforms in liberalized electricity markets in the south. The analysis examines how social justice needs to inform the energy transition, also recognising that energy injustice cannot be separated from other social ills, such as poverty and discrimination based on factors including class, race, gender, or indigeneity. It concludes that there are significant protections emerging for energy consumers in the national electricity market, but an inequitable distribution of energy benefits and burdens in remote Aboriginal communities.Less