An increasing amount of work has gone into making consumer law international. The growing importance of international consumer law is evidenced by some of the major recent crises involving global consumer law (Dieselgate, Facebook, etc.). This paper makes the case that, rather than focusing on harmonizing substantive consumer law, efforts towards the internationalization of consumer law should instead be directed toward the establishment of internationally recognized minimum standards of consumer protection (as accomplished by the United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection) and the development and facilitation of cooperation as a necessary precondition for the effective protection of consumers (as started by the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network).This is due to two factors: first, policy approaches are more easily used to achieve coordination among diverse countries in the area of consumer protection than substantive harmonization; second, coordination is currently an instrument that can offer a higher level of consumer protection than substantive harmonization.

Consumer Protection, International, United Nations.