Comparative Law and Policy Study on Self-regulatory Rules and Business Ombudsman

目前，在日本，公司行为准则的作用和合法合规的重要性越来越受到重视。消费者政策一直倾向于支持企业的自愿努力，将其作为实现消费者保护成果的一种手段。由于消费者保护的软法方法在澳大利亚特别成功，并在欧盟越来越受欢迎，我们对澳大利亚基于行业的行为准则和ADR计划进行了访谈研究，并对欧盟正在做的事情进行了文献研究。通过比较澳大利亚和日本的经验，发现行业协会的作用存在很大的差异。澳大利亚模式侧重于以行业为基础的方法，而日本模式则依赖于个体企业。日本模式的缺陷之一是缺乏有效的自我监管努力的执行机制，除非市场真诚地评估个别企业的努力。这项研究的结果作为2003年4月10-12日在希腊雅典举行的第九届国际消费者法会议上的研讨会的开场白介绍了这一研究结果。

Currently in Japan, the role of corporate codes of conduct and the importance of legal compliance has been increasingly emphasized. Consumer policy has been moving towards support for the voluntary efforts of business as a means of gaining consumer protection outcomes. Since soft law approaches for consumer protection is especially successful in Australia and is getting popular in EU, we made interview-based research into industry-based codes of conduct and ADR schemes in Australia and literature study of what is being done in EU. Upon the comparison of Australian and Japanese experiences, sharp difference is found on the role of industry associations. Australian model is focused on the industry-based approach while Japanese model depends on the individual business. One of the defects of the Japanese model is that is lacks effective enforcement mechanism of those self-regulatory efforts unless the market sincerely evaluates the effort of individual business.The result of this study was presented as an introductory address of the Symposium "Consumer Choice and Risk Society" at the Ninth International Conference on Consumer Law which was held in Athens, Greece, 10-12 April, 2003.