Research On The Legal Application Of International Consumer Contracts

With the development of global economic integration and the progress of science and technology, international economic and trade exchanges become frequency. The international consumption has become common. Since the adoption of reform and opening-up policy,China is more and more involved in the world economy and international consumption occurs frequently.At the same time, the number of international consumer disputes is sharp rising. Private international law as a legal department adjusting property relations and personal relations between equal subjects, the fundamental task is to fully reached a fairer result in the case of international civil and commercial matter,to ensure the international civil and commercial exchanges normally be carried out and establish a harmonious and stable, fair and rational international economic order. Since the beginning of the20th Century, the value orientation of the private international law turned from formal justice to substantive justice.Many countries’s legislation of private international law focus on the substantive justice. The consumer is in a weak position in consumer contracts. In the international consumer contract, to protect the interests of consumers and fair settlement is the dispute of private international law. Therefore, private international law has taken on the international consumer contract law applies special rules are more stringent than the general contract,such as limitations of the principle of party autonomy and forced rules in consumers habitual residence law must be applicable. In a long period of time, China was lack of special provisions for the application of the law of the international consumer contracts. For just solution of the international consumer disputes and to protect the legitimate interests of consumers, China issued the People’s Republic of China on Foreign-related Civil Relations Law Applicable Law on October28,2010. Section42of the law for the first time specifically makes special provision for the application of the law of the transnational consumer contracts. Firstly, the paper defined the foreign consumer contracts.From the perspective of substantive justice and combineding with the interest of the weak under the private international law principle of protection,this article analyzes the special rules of the international consumer contract law applies and analyzes the latest provisions of legal application about the the international consumer contract in’Law of the People’s Republic of China on Application of Laws to Foreign-Related Civil Relation’.