Research On Soft Law Governance In The Field Of Consumer Protection

Soft law is a code of conduct without the coercive force of state. The hard law usedto refer to the legal force of the State, backed up by the traditional sense, according tothe soft law. In recent years, research on the soft law is more and more popular, butmostly is concentrated in the field of public law. The concept of soft law has not yetcaused enough attention during the field of the consumer protection laws. Mode of thetraditional consumer protection by the hard-regulatory system reveals its drawbackstoday. Applying the flexible soft law theory into the field of consumer protection, cannot only realize the objectives of protecting the interests of consumers, but also open upnew areas of soft law. The above is done with the flexibility, openness, responsivenessof soft law, and as a result, the field which can not be adjusted by the hard-regulatorysystem can be adjusted now.This paper uses the methods of comparative studies and empirical analysis. Thisarticle first gives a brief outline of domestic and foreign research status and thesignificance of the soft law governance in the field of consumer protection. Then thenext part of the article is about the basic theory of soft law and soft law governance,including the concept, features and functions of soft law and the basic connotation ofsoft law governance. Then the author describes the need for governance of soft law inthe consumer protection, points out that with the rapid development of economicglobalization and science and technology today, the traditional hard law protection canno longer meet the needs of the consumer protection. Flexibility, openness,responsiveness and other characteristics of soft law can remedy the defect of hard law,and it also can reduce the cost of national law and overcome the double failure, etc. Theauthor proposes that public participation and soft law governance should be valued inthe consumer protection. Next, the article proposes the basic conditions for effectiveoperation of the soft law according to the successful experience on soft law governanceof the extra-territorial, discusses the the status quo of soft law in Consumer Protection inChina and then put forward a improvement project. Finally, the article stressed that inthe concluding section, we can’t discard the hard law and completely rely on soft law inthe consumer protection. The creation and implementation of soft law should guide bythe constitutional spirit. Soft law and hard law should complement each other. Thedevelopment of soft law should be guided by hard law principle, to improve the legitimacy. When hard law is insufficient, we should give full play to soft law. Mixedlegal system should be built to achieve the consumer protection objectives effectively.