UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection Chairpersons’ Meeting Working Group on Other Issues Meeting 7 March 2014 3.00 p.m. (Geneva time) SUMMARY OF THE MEETING Participants: -
Chairs: Brazil and Germany National consumer protection authorities: Argentina, Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong SAR, Italy, Mauritius, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Tanzania, United States. International organizations: CARICOM, UNCTAD NGOs/Business Associations/civil society organization: CI, CUTS, Consumer Council-­‐India, NGO-­‐India, Academia: University of Delhi 1
Summary of the meeting: 1. Opening of the Working Group on Other Issues meeting: Ms Ana Cândida Muniz from the National Secretariat for Consumer Affairs of the Federative Republic of Brazil, and Dr Rainer Metz, Deputy Director General Consumer Policy in Law and Economics of the Federal Republic of Germany, chaired the meeting of the Working Group on Other Issues. They welcomed participants to this Working Group following the work programme proposed in the Second Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Consumer Protection of July 2013. The Chairpersons presented the following agenda for the meeting: A. Presentation of the Background, Work programme and Expected Output of the Working Group on Other Issues. B. Overview of the questionnaire and accompanying instructions. C. Questions & Answers. The Chairpersons recalled that several important issues were discussed in the Second Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Consumer Protection, so it is important to investigate and develop them. They also noted that many issues were mentioned in the meeting, so this Working Group will need to focus only on those issues are deemed most widely significant among experts. Moreover, the Chairpersons clarified that the present meeting aimed at presenting the method of work for the Working Group and that it was not intended to decide upon the substantive issues to be considered. 2. Presentation of the Background, Work programme and Expected Output of the Working Group on E-­‐commerce Mr Arnau Izaguerri, from the Competition and Consumer Policies Branch of UNCTAD, thanked participants for providing their inputs to this Working Group. The goal of this group is to provide concrete proposals for the Secretariat Report to the VII UN Review Conference on the issue of the United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection (hereinafter UNGCP), and the availability of their revision. In order to gather all opinions on the issues to be included in the revision of 2
the UNGCP (other than E-­‐commerce, Financial Services and Implementation which have specific working groups), the UNCTAD Secretariat prepared a detailed questionnaire and its accompanying instructions circulated in advance. (Please see excel document: UNGCP_Questionnaire WG Other Issues; and the pdf document: UNGCP_Instructions WG Other Issues) Participants are kindly asked to provide their views on the other issues to be considered by completing the relevant questionnaire and sending it to the Chairs (Brazil: ana.cipriano@mj.gov.br; and Germany: Matthias.Brigulla@bmel.bund.de) and to the UNCTAD Secretariat (graham.mott@unctad.org, arnau.izaguerri@unctad.org). The deadline for receiving contributions is Friday 4 April. The first draft of this report is expected by June 2014. The Secretariat will assist the Chairs in writing a draft report, which will contain concrete recommendations for a new chapter(s) on other issues (June 2014). This report will be circulated among consumer experts, whose inputs will be contained in a final Report. This final Secretariat Report will be issued under the authority of the UNCTAD Secretariat, so participants are not engaging the official views of their States by answering the questionnaire, but rather participating at the expert level. Consumer protection experts will be invited to discuss the said report during a Preparatory Meeting (December 2014 or January 2015) for the VII UN Review Conference (November 2015). 3. Overview of the questionnaire and accompanying instructions The Chairpersons summarized the expected output of the questionnaires circulated among participants. Its aim is to identify and develop issues (other than e-­‐
commerce, financial services and implementation) that will be proposed for inclusion in the revision of the UNGCP. In order to better take stock of the interests and priorities of participants in this Working Group, a questionnaire in the form of an Excel document has been circulated. The final list of issues that will be considered for this Working Group will be decided once expert’s contributions are processed. Participants are also asked to include other issues that are not listed in the questionnaire. In the questionnaire, the issues discussed in the Second Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Consumer Protection are displayed in rows, while columns contain specific questions to every corresponding issue. Participants are encouraged to portray their national/regional experiences and to signal their needs on capacity 3
building activities and technical cooperation. For more details, please see the document UNGCP_Instructions WG Other Issues. 4. Questions & Answers The Chairpersons opened the floor for comments from participants. Several participants took the floor to express their priorities for this questionnaire, such as: health insurance and health care; generic medicines of the pharmaceutical industry; and consumers’ rights (understood as Human Rights). Participants are encouraged to include any additional issues in the rows 19-­‐21 of the Excel document reserved for ‘other/additional issues’. On the other hand, most participants stressed the need to reduce the list of issues to be further considered and later developed into recommendations. Some participants noted that it is not optimal to cover too many issues, and that those that have attracted most consensus already have specific working groups (e-­‐commerce, financial services and implementation). One expert drew a distinction between the issues proposed in the questionnaire: those of a horizontal nature (issues 1 to 5) and those of a vertical or sectoral nature (issues 6-­‐8), which might be useful to bear in mind. Other participants advised to wait until all submissions are received to confirm the issues that are deemed most significant among experts. Some participants inquired on the methodology to select the issues that will be further discussed and developed. The UNCTAD Secretariat informed that all contributions (unless otherwise instructed by their authors) will be posted on the UNCTAD webpage so as to ensure that all participants know the views and interests of other experts. As contributions are received and processed, the Chairpersons of the Working Group, with the support of the Secretariat, will carry out further consultations and will decide on the final list of other issues. The Chairpersons of this Working Group may convene other meetings at any time at their discretion. N.B. All participants are invited to send their comments/corrections to this summary or to the questionnaire to the UNCTAD Secretariat (graham.mott@unctad.org and arnau.izaguerri@unctad). 4