民事诉讼法英文论文消费者法的革新性本质.pdf

J Consum Policy (2012) 35:165– 173 DOI 10.1007/s10603-012-9190-0 EDITORIAL NOTE The Innovative Nature of Consumer Law Ewoud Hondius Received: 15 September 2011 /Accepted: 10 January 2012 / Published online: 16 February 2012 # The Author(s) 2012. This article is published with open access at S Keywords Consumer . President Kennedy . Innovation . Europeanisation Birth of a New Discipline On 15 March 2012, Consumer Law will celebrate its 50th birthday. On that day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy famously read his Special Message on Protecting the Consumer Interest to the American Congress. The Message, which begins with the oft-quoted words “Consumers, by definition, include us all,” enumerates four basic consumer rights: “(1) The right to safety—to be protected against the marketing of goods which are hazardous to health or life. (2) The right to be informed—to be protected against fraudulent, deceitful, or grossly misleading information, advertising, labelling, or other practices, and to be given the facts he needs to make an informed choice. (3) The right to choose—to be assured, wherever possible, access to a variety of products and services at competitive prices; and in those industries in which competition is not workable and Government regulation is substituted, an assurance of satisfactory quality and service at fair prices. Keynote lecture, ius commune conference, Leuven, 25 November 2010. The author is grateful to JCP’s anonymous external examiner for his or her useful comments. E. Hondius (*) Ius Commune Research School, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: e.h.hondius@uu.nl 166 E. Hondius (4) The right to be heard—to be assured that consumer interests will receive full and sympathetic consid