對抗環保永續認證失能的法律取徑——美國、歐盟及我國法

Weeding out Wanton Environmental and Sustainable Certifications: Legal Strategies of the U.S. the EU and Taiwan

商品上標示的環保、永續認證，已經成為消費者辨識優良商品、實踐綠色消費所不可或缺。但消費者的仰賴、信賴，也讓品質不佳的認證有機會魚目混珠。認證機構未按所訂標準確實審核、審核者與受認證者間有利益衝突、認證標準太過寬鬆以致背離環保永續標準等等亂象，皆多有著例。本文旨在探討法律如何介入矯正此等亂象，以促進認證品質的提升，並先以美、歐現況為參考。在美國法方面，本文率相關文獻之先，整理一系列案例，歸納出其主要的發展是採取消費者訴訟的「由下而上」模式，但在消費者保護規範架構下，實則不易主張廠商標示認證有不實或欺騙。歐盟方面，本文分析國內討論尚少的近期立法，觀察其如何「由上而下」加以規制。回到我國法制，認證亂象應為跨領域之問題，除消費者保護、公平交易法的薦證規範外，商標法的證明標章制度也須納入考慮。本文提供強化此些制度的具體建議，以求「由下而上」與「由上而下」相輔相成，使綠色消費市場中的認證確實可靠、可信。

Certifications signifying eco-friendliness or sustainability are indispensable for choosing products that align with the green consumerism ideal. Yet a flurry of dubious certifications has emerged to take advantage of consumers’reliance and trust, with many examples of certification organizations not performing audits according to their pronounced standards, conflicts-of-interest between auditors and auditees, and certification standards simply being too lenient to ensure green-ness. This article discusses pathways to correct these missteps and encourage better certification systems, referring first to U.S. and EU developments for guidance. The U.S. has mainly observed a“bottom-up”approach where consumers bring litigation against merchants displaying certifications. This article is the first to collect a series of cases with this effort to show that the current consumer protection legal framework might compromise plaintiffs’claims. This article also reviews a“top-down”approach of targeting certifications taken by the EU with new unfair business practice regulations to fill in a gap in our domestic literature. In Taiwan, certifications involve at least three distinct fields: consumer protection, endorsement rules in the Fair Trade Act, and perhaps surprisingly, certification mark rules in trademark law. This article further provides suggestions to strengthen these legal regimes, lending from both the“bottom-up”and“top-down”approaches with hope of making certifications truly reliable and trustworthy.