Promotion of consumer rights emphasizing sustainable consumption patterns is among the key objectives of government decision and policy makers. This orientation of policies is the result of such factors as the larger population of consumers compared to suppliers; consumers' position as the last ring in the value chain of goods and services; and their role in guaranteeing a sustainable growth in production. In addition, due to an imbalanced access to resources and information, the consumers' have a smaller bargaining power against suppliers, a situation which increases their risk of loss in unfair transactions.

A survey of the experiences of a number of countries including Australia, Malaysia and the UK, as well as authentic international instruments indicates that firstly, approaches pursued by countries include enabling consumers to protect themselves and conferring to them parts of the responsibility to protect themselves, developing accountable suppliers through employing self-disciplinary approaches and systems, as well as paving the grounds for enhancing the effectiveness of consumer rights protection laws and programmes. Secondly, planning to protect consumer rights are carried out in three levels training and public awareness, market structure, and organizations and institutions protecting consumer rights.

In this context, investigating the regulations governing and the factors effective on consumer rights in the selected countries has led to the following conclusions: The identification of the proper position of each stakeholder and assignment of the appropriate roles and responsibilities to each stakeholder will reduce the burdens and costs imposed on them by the Government; the adoption of clear and comprehensive policies and objectives towards protection of consumer rights play a crucial role in the formulation of programmes and implementation of measures, effective on consumer rights protection; and ultimately, transparent regulations and their prohibitive nature greatly contribute to thwarting offences.

Preliminary studies carried out in relation to the regulations governing and factors affecting consumer rights in Iran indicates non-transparency of objectives, and weakness of strategies and plannings needed for the protection of consumer rights. In addition, the existing regulations have a rather retrospective nature and become active after the offences are committed.