Book Review: Stephen Weatherill, EU Consumer Law and Policy (2005)

Abstract:     
Is European consumer protection an anomaly in this globalizing economy, particularly in light of its counterpart in the United States? How are we to understand the new Consumer Policy Strategy and the recent call from the European Commission for Better Regulation? Stephen Weatherill's book, a second and more comprehensive edition of his previous EU Consumer Law and Policy, answers these and other questions. The book presents an accurate institutional account of European Union consumer law and policy, an approach that is both the strength and weakness of the volume. Weatherill offers a clear and thorough analysis of EU consumer law and policy, beginning with the creation of the European Economic Community in the mid-1950s and finishing with the draft Constitutional Treaty rejected by the French and Dutch referenda in 2005. There is likely nobody better than Professor Weatherill to explain to an academic readership the evolution of EU law in light of the major institutional challenges, constitutional compromises and federal tension that arose in the last fifty years of the common market. Though this institutional perspective is meticulously constructed through insightful analyses and future predictions, some blind spots remain. As a result, at the end of the book the reader is left with some important unanswered questions, such as: Does the European trend reflect a global consumerist perspective? Or is the European model substantively different from its U.S. counterpart? And, ultimately, what is happening to consumer protection in the West?

Keywords: Eurpoean Union, consumer protection law, consumer protection policy

Accepted Paper Series