Conflict of laws in regard to cross-border consumer contracts

Conflict of laws was once seen remote from the lives of ordinary people. With the limits of borders, people traditionally made contracts within the territory of their own country. Thus, consumer protection was a national matter and was not the major concern of this area of law. The development in transportation and communication has changed that. A borderless world is created in which individuals are allowed to easily participate in cross-border transactions. Consumer contracts are no longer limited to the matter of purely domestic contracts. Anyone travelling from one country to another is immediately exposed to the operation of conflict of law. The same holds true for anyone who logs onto the Internet. The objectives of this independent study are to study the existing approaches, principles and laws related to conflict of laws in cross-border consumer contracts of the chosen foreign legal systems and to compare Thai law with the foreign laws in order to conclude and propose a potential solution for Thailand to be able to appropriately resolve disputes generated by cross-border consumer contracts. Party autonomy is the prominent principle in conflict of laws. It can effectively provide certainty and predictability. However, in a transaction where one party is less informed and weaker than the other, the unlimited party autonomy causes injustice to the vulnerable party. More consideration needs to be given to consumer protection in conflict of laws. The research finds that the existing Thai conflict of law rules do not give any special consideration to consumer protection. There is no distinct rules for consumer contracts. All types of contracts are subject to article 13 of the Conflict of Laws Act B.E. 2481 where party autonomy is unlimitedly guaranteed and the approach taken for the default law in the absence of choice is obsolete and unreasonable. The existing rules of Thai conflict of law are insufficient to protect consumers. The author suggests Thailand to amend conflict of law rules in contractual obligation and the relevant domestic consumer laws in order to appropriately resolve consumer contract disputes and to provide certainty and predictability in cross-border transactions by adopting the approaches used in the chosen foreign laws. The author sincerely hopes that this research may be beneficial to those interested in this area of law.