개정 국제사법상 소비자계약의 특칙에 관한 연구 - 개정법 제42조와 제47조의 문언에 기초한 해석론을 중심으로 -

A consumer as a party to a contract should be specially protected because of some of the characteristics such as the significant imbalance in terms of bargaining power between business operators and consumers, and the vulnerability of consumers. Such protection is often realized at the stage of determining international adjudicatory jurisdiction and governing law through the application of special provisions. It is named consumer protection under Private International Law. South Korea had introduced a special provision in Article 27 of the Private International Law Act, which was enacted in 2001. However, the cases which applied Article 27 are limited and theoretical studies are still needed. In particular, at a time when international consumer contract disputes are on the rise due to the rapid development of internet transactions, South Korea, a large country with cross-border shopping, needs more research about the correct interpretation of the consumer-protection provision in the Private International Law Act to protect its consumers. As the Amended Private International Law Act(hereinafter, “Amended Act”) is going to take effect from July 5, 2022, it is necessary to solve the tasks left by the current law in the context of the “Amended Act”. The Amended Act separates Article 27 of the old Private International Law Act and moved the jurisdiction rules of consumer contract to Article 42, conflict-of-law rules to Article 47 of the Amended Act, respectively. This paper discusses the interpretation of special rules of consumer contracts under the Amended Korean Private International Law Act, focusing on the text of Articles 42 and 47. The paper is discussed as follows. Section II explores the interpretation of the jurisdiction rules of a consumer contract. Section Ⅲ explores the interpretation of the conflict-of-law rules of a consumer contract. Section Ⅳ analyzes the interactions between the jurisdiction rules and the conflict-of-law rules of a consumer contract. Section Ⅴ summarizes the overall discussion above and suggests topics that should be discussed deeper in future research.