The theme of the 2015 International Association of Consumer Law conference was ‘virtues and consumer law’. The conference was hosted by the University of Amsterdam and took places in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The key question discussed during the conference was: what makes consumer protection law fit for consumers and businesses? This question was addressed from various angles, dealing with various virtues and their relation to consumer protection law.

The conference hosted 39 workshops (during 8 concurrent sessions) on themes such as Hope (in the era of a financial crisis), Fairness (against unfair commercial practices and against unfair terms), Compassion (in clinical trials and towards vulnerable consumers in financial sector), Forgiveness (through arbitration and ODR), Trust (through data protection) and Self-realization (in consumer contracts). Keynote speeches were held by, i.a., the late Norbert Reich (University of Bremen), Omri Ben-Shahar (University of Chicago), Carina Törnblom (European Commission), Verica Trstenjak (former Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union) and Oren Bar-Gil (Harvard University).

The conference was attended by well over 200 participants –academics, consumer advocates, business representatives and lawyers – from all over the world. The conference was organized by prof. dr. Marco Loos, dr. Joasia Luzak and Sacha Tamboer, LLM.