The work of Professor Iain Ramsay

In addition to the 3 themes, the conference will honour and celebrate the work of Professor Iain Ramsay, whose dedication and passion for advancing consumer empowerment led to many ground-breaking and thought-provoking publications in consumer protection theory, policy and law.

Professor Ramsay has had a long and distinguished career in the area of consumer law, currently he is Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Kent.

He holds an LL.D. and LL.B. from the University of Edinburgh and an LL.M. from Mcgill University, Montreal, Canada and has taught in both the UK and Canada. He has held visiting professor/fellowships across the world, including in Japan, Australia, Brazil, and the US.

As noted above he has written extensively on the areas of consumer law, consumer credit and insolvency with his latest work being ‘Landmark Cases in Consumer Law (ed.) with Jodi Gardner (Hart, Bloomsbury, 2024).

Professor Ramsay has also acted as a consultant on consumer law and policy to governments and NGOs in Canada, Europe, and South America.

Professor Ramsay is renowned for ground breaking work on personal insolvency and foundational contributions to consumer law and policy. Elected to the American Law Institute more than 20 years ago and to the International Insolvency Institute in 2019, Professor Ramsay has served on the International Protection of Consumers Committee of the International Law Association since 2008 and the Working Group on Financial Services, Revision of United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection since 2014.

He co-led the consumer bankruptcy Collaborative Research Network of the global Law and Society Association, which generated two significant essay collections in the field; and led the International Association of Consumer Law-L’Association Internationale de Droit de La Consommation as president from 2003-2007, editing the collection of leading essays Consumer Law in the Global Economy: National and International Dimensions derived from the Association’s 2005 conference that he had organised. Professor Ramsay served on Canada’s Federal Task Force on Personal Insolvency from 2000 until 2002 and the World Bank Working Group on Insolvency of Natural Persons from 2011 to 2013, for which he co-authored its influential 2013 report.

He holds current editorial board appointments on five journals, including the field leading Journal of Consumer Policy.

Beyond his specialist areas, Professor Ramsay’s contributions to the discipline include a three-year term as Editor-in-Chief of Canada’s Osgoode Hall Law Journal, one of Canada’s premier peer-reviewed academic journals, appointment to the Sub-Panel for Law for the UK’s 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise and a current appointment to the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology Review of Legal Research Centres.