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The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has called on UN member states to protect consumers from the health and safety risks posed by counterfeit and pirated goods.
In a speech yesterday on consumer protection, Suriya Prabha, a policy advisor to the ICC’s Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP), urged UN member states to include anti-counterfeiting and anti-piracy strategies in national consumer protection efforts.
Prabha highlighted measures from BASCAP’s best practices for removing fakes from online platforms, which state: “The rapidly growing prevalence of counterfeited and pirated products is an emerging risk to consumers.”
The best practices called for “due diligence” checks on those trading through online platforms, automated tools to prevent high-risk offers being presented to consumers, and “swift and strong” terms and conditions to make it clear that “sanctions will be imposed on those trading in counterfeit and pirated products”.
They concluded in saying that UN guidelines “provide a common set of principles that can assist member states in strengthening consumer protection legislation, standard setting and enforcement and redress systems”.
International Chamber of Commerce, ICC, United Nations, UN, copyright, counterfeit, pirated goods, health and safety,
