Launch of Blogpost
Today is World Consumer Rights Day 2021
Today is World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD). Every year on the 15th March Consumer Organisations throughout the world mark this day by joining to highlight and raise awareness of consumer issues that are important to consumers throughout the world.
World Consumer Rights Day is an annual occasion dedicated to highlighting the power of consumers and their rights for a fair, safe and sustainable marketplace for everyone.
Every year there is a central theme. For 2021 the theme is “Tackling Plastic Pollution”.
The WCRD event is coordinated by Consumers International, which has a membership of over 200 members’ consumer organisations from over 100 countries,
I have chosen to launch by blog on this special day for consumers. My blog will focus on consumer protection, consumer empowerment and consumer related issues
(Unlike the more popular rights such as human rights and workers’ rights) Consumer rights are not so well known. Despite consumer rights being on the global agenda, many consumers in Malaysia and throughout the world are not very aware of their rights, the laws in place to protect their rights and the knowledge and skills needed as consumers to protect their rights and enhance their quality of life.
In a modern economy, do consumers need their rights to be protected? This is a topic for a future post.
In this post, I want to highlight the brief history of WCRD and why consumer protection is important. Next, I would be discussing the four levels of consumer protection.
WCRD – A brief history
First, a brief history of WCRD. World Consumer Rights Day was inspired by President John F Kennedy, who sent a special message to the US Congress on 15th March 1962, in which he formally addressed the issue of consumer rights. He was the first world leader to do so. The consumer movement first marked that date in 1983 as World Consumer Rights Day and now uses the day every year to mobilise action on important issues and campaigns.
While Kennedy presented 4 rights in 1962, the global consumer movement has expended to 8 universal consumer rights.
Before clearly protecting consumers through an explicit statement of their rights and subsequent consumer legislation and consumer policies, the rule of the market was caveat emptor, which simply means buyers beware. What this means is that if you bought expired food and then got sick; it is your fault. If you bought toys that poisoned your children, it is your fault. If you bought an unsafe product such as an electrical equipment and you got electrocuted, it is your fault. If you bought a new car that gave you endless problems, there was no responsibility of the seller to repair those faults.
Also in terms of services, if an insurance salesman oversold the benefits and you were to find out later, that it was simply not true; nothing could be done. If an advertisement made promises about goods or services, which after you had purchased were not true at all, there is nothing you could do. Worse still the seller could continue to advertise and continue to cheat others.
Without consumer protection, the consumer was always wrong and the buyer always rights. This also means that if the consumer was not satisfied with the product or service, he had no right to redress.
I am sure you can see where I am going with this. Without consumer protection in place, the consumer is at the mercy of the seller. And if cheated or misled, he has no right to some form of redress (return, compensation, repair). That is the state of the market without consumer protection in place.
Levels of consumer protection – Global
There are 4 levels of the consumer protection. At the global level, the United Nations in 1985 passed the United Nations Global Consumer Protection Guidelines (UNGCP). This Guidelines has two important impacts.
Firstly, it recognised that consumers throughout the word have certain rights and that governments must have legislation and policies to protect those rights.
Secondly, and very importantly, it provided broad guidelines of the scope of those rights in explicit terms and how those rights can and should be codified into national laws. These guidelines provide a general benchmark for all nations to follow in developing their own consumer protection legislation and policies. (UNGCP will be farther explained in a future post).
Level of consumer protection – National
The second role, and often the most critical role, is that of the national government. The universal rights and the UNGCP are fine; but they lack “teeth” and enforceability. Government needs legislation to define and codify consumer protection and enforce the consumer protection laws.
In Malaysia there are indeed many laws pertaining to consumer protection. We even have a National Consumer Policy. The two key legislation pertaining to consumer protection in Malaysia is the Consumer Protection Act, 1999 and the Competition Act, 2010. Both are critical for consumer protection and they have different roles.
The CP, 1999 will be explained in more detail in later posts. Every Malaysian consumer should know his rights but more important should have some understanding of the laws in place to protect those rights. Most importantly he should know where to go to if he feels that his rights (according to the law) have been violated.
Levels of protection – Civil Society
The third crucial component of consumer protection and consumer well-being is the role of civil society. It is sad to say that often both at the global level and the national level, the institutions are often slow in addressing issues of consumer protection. Further often there are powerful business lobbies that try to impede movements towards strengthening consumer protection.
Thus civil society, especially consumer movements, play a critical role in pushing for better legislation and better policies for consumer protection. In fact, both in the launch of the 4 rights by President Kennedy, and the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection at the global levels, the consumer movement played a crucial role.
In Malaysia, both in the formation of a specific Ministry for Consumer Protection (Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs) as well as legislation on Consumer Protection Act and the Competition Act, the Federation of Malaysia Consumers Associations (FOMCA) played a critical role in advocacy for the laws as well as collaborating to ensure the enforcement of those laws.
Level of protection – Consumers
Finally consumers themselves must play a crucial role. They need to be aware of their rights and responsibilities and develop the skills to be an effective consumer. They also need effective self-management skills such as consumption management, and financial management. They also need to play their role in ensuring a sustainable and safe society.
Thus consumer protection is a function of global institutions, national governments, consumer movements and consumers themselves to ensure adequate protection of consumer rights as well as enhancement of the quality of life of consumers.
Conclusion
This is my first post. In future posts I would be writing on issues on consumer protection and consumer empowerment issues. I will also be writing on consumer issues such as sustainable consumption and climate change.
Being a consumer advocate, I do on occasion write on consumer issues in the media. This would be uploaded as well on the blog.
I have been a consumer activist for more than 40 years – some successes but also many challenges. My background is in psychology. I am a life member of the Malaysian organisation representing psychologists’, PSIMA (Psychology Association of Malaysia). My interests are on consumer protection and consumer behaviours and am very keen to better understand how to change consumer behaviour towards better consumer well-being.
