2018년 일본 「消費者契約法」의 개정 과정과 그 시사점 - ‘곤혹 유형 추가’를 중심으로 -

This paper aims to look into the standardization process for the 2018 revision of the 「Consumer Contract Law」 in Japan from the perspective of ‘situational vulnerability’, based on the conceptualization of ‘vulnerable consumer’ created by the EU and the development of ‘situational vulnerability’. From the above point of view, the 2018 revision of the 「Consumer Contract Law」 in Japan can be defined as the following four aspects. First, Japan promotes consumer protection reflecting situational vulnerability through the special law of the Japanese 「Civil Code」 and 「Consumer Contract Law」, which belongs to general laws regarding consumer contracts. Second, it was found that the perspective of civil consumer protection has switched to the ‘recognition of the gap between business operators and consumers, to the recognition of the gap among consumers and, to the recognition that all consumers may be vulnerable consumers depending on the situation’. Third, the 2018 revised 「Consumer Contract Law」 in Japan attributes the injustice of contracts concluded through abuse of human relationships and speech or behavior encouraging anxiety to consumers’ incapability of making a rational and free judgment under the above state and business operators’ abuse of this situation. Fourth, it was revealed that Japan has continued research on the development of systems considering situational vulnerability along with the submission of working group reports since the 2018 revision of the 「Consumer Contract Law」. Now in Korea, it is hard to find a discussion on categorization and standardization of consumer protection considering situational vulnerability from the perspective of private laws. It is, therefore, required to recognize issues of contract laws considering situational vulnerability in Korea and seek solutions on the model of the 2018 「Consumer Contract Law」 revision process in Japan and the subsequent steps.