School of Law CCLFR research seminar with Dr. Kate OReilly (Maastricht University)

Event time: 12:00-13:00

Title: Vulnerability theory: a critical theoretical approach to the greening of EU consumer law

Abstract: The EU's Better Regulation Agenda (BRA) fundamentally undermines the environmental and social goals of the green transition. By reducing the complexity of circularity policies into quantifiable metrics, the BRA creates an illusion of objectivity while at the same time translating environmental aims into minor adaptions to the EU consumer law acquis that leave existing market structures in place. The Right to Repair Directive provides a good example of this process. Rather than addressing the structural issues that drive the replacement rather than repair of defective goods, the directive frames premature replacement as an issue of consumer behavior caused by information asymmetries and a lack of incentives. Using the right to repair as a case study, this presentation adopts a critical theoretical approach to explore how the BRA's evidence-based methodology reframes structural environmental problems as market failures and in doing so limits the transformative capacity of consumer law.

Bio: Dr. Kate O’Reilly is an assistant professor of private law at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Her ongoing research applies interdisciplinary and critical theory approaches to EU sustainability law, with a focus on vulnerability theory.

Kate defended her PhD thesis “Empowering consumers through law? Rethinking the concept of EU consumer empowerment” in March 2023. Kate is a currently a visiting scholar at the Vulnerability and the Human Condition Initiative, Emory University.