SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This chapter examines the evolution of consumer law and policy in Ghana, focusing on reforms induced by crises over the last two decades. It considers whether such reforms converge with or diverge from, international, supranational, and sub-regional standards and initiatives in other jurisdictions. The discussion demonstrates that crises-oriented reforms over the last two decades are more slanted towards public regulatory governance in reaction to the emergence of crises. The analysis further reveals that the regulatory devices broadly converge with international, supranational, and sub-regional standards and initiatives of other jurisdictions, except in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, where some initiatives in Ghana and other jurisdictions manifest divergence in the policy responses. The chapter argues that convergence is predicated on instances where there exist well-thought-out international standards and protocols as guidelines; such standards were non-existent as regards the COVID-19 crisis. As such, each country was grappling to fashion-out measures to deal with the crisis head-on, bearing in mind the peculiar challenges experienced by consumers in the domestic setting, leading to a divergence of approaches. It is, therefore, submitted that while the existence of international standards or initiatives elsewhere is a bedrock for possible convergence of national legal systems in dealing with crises of identical character, the non-availability of such international standards provides space for the divergence of measures bearing in mind the peculiar national circumstances of various countries dealing with similar crises.