The first international conference on consumer protection and the use of technology to redress consumer complaints has finished. The forum was attended by by members of civil society from as far west as Tokyo, as far east as Cairo, as far north as Copenhagen, and as far south as Buenos Aires. Many states, languages, cultures, and legal frameworks were represented at the meeting. In my view, as chairman, it was a great success. We had two days of fast paced, interesting, and progressive discussions. In time, these deliberations will be raised with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law as it considers moving forward on these issues.
I want to express my thanks to the members of the organizing committee, Dave Bilinsky of the Law Society of British Columbia, Vikki Rogers of Pace University, Colin Rule of PayPal, and Zbynek Loebl of ADR.EU for their dedicated efforts in putting together an excellent event. Thank you to our sponsors at Adobe Canada; ADR.EU; The Public Law Research Center, Faculty of Law, University of Montreal; and ICANN. Thank you to our volunteers: Doug Leigh who will be crafting the closing communique; Wayne Plimmer and Heather Purves who ran our registration desk; and Patricia Mulhern who acted as a local host to our out of town visitors. Thank to to our conference partner – Right to Play, and finally a special thanks to the wonderful young stars from the School of Music Opera ensemble at University of British Columbia who entertained us.