Turkish Product Liability Law from the Perspective of European Law
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Yasin Alperen Karaşahin
Abstract
Product liability has been, and continues to be, a problematic area in Turkish law. Prior to legislative attempts to introduce strict product liability, producers could only be held liable based on their fault. Although liability based on fault cannot provide appropriate solutions to all product liability problems, the Turkish Court of Cassation was in the process of establishing case law that was suitable to most product liability issues. However, this development was interrupted by problematic legislative attempts to introduce strict product liability, which became the focus of academic literature on product liability. The final of these legislation attempts is the Product Safety and Technical Regulations Act of 2020. In this Act, product liability and product safety rules are intertwined with each other. This is problematic for product liability provisions, since concepts and rules that should remain in product safety law are transferred to product liability law. The Act claims to be in line with the Product Liability Directive of 1985. However, this is far from accurate. The Act fails to harmonise Turkish law with the Product Liability Directive of 1985, let alone offer solutions to problems that have become apparent since 1985. This article attempts to highlight the product liability issues caused by the Act and interpret its provisions in a manner that is as compatible with European law as possible.
Note
All translations from Turkish are made by the author. The author thanks Dr Işık Önay, Assistant Professor of Civil Law at Koç University, for reading an earlier draft of this article and sharing his comments.
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Instrumental Tort Law: Moral Technology or the Promise of a More Advanced Normative Underpinning?
- Presumptions of Law Concerning Causality in Environmental Cases: Towards Collective Presumptions of Fact?
- Turkish Product Liability Law from the Perspective of European Law
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- Book Review
- Paul Wragg and Peter Coe (eds), Landmark Cases in Privacy Law (Hart, Oxford 2023). xiv + 432 pp, ISBN 9781509940783. £54 (hardback).
- 23rd Annual Conference on European Tort Law (ACET)
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Instrumental Tort Law: Moral Technology or the Promise of a More Advanced Normative Underpinning?
- Presumptions of Law Concerning Causality in Environmental Cases: Towards Collective Presumptions of Fact?
- Turkish Product Liability Law from the Perspective of European Law
- Climate Change, Compensation and Unpredictable or Uninsurable Loss: A Possible Path Forward Using Compensation Funds
- Book Review
- Paul Wragg and Peter Coe (eds), Landmark Cases in Privacy Law (Hart, Oxford 2023). xiv + 432 pp, ISBN 9781509940783. £54 (hardback).
- 23rd Annual Conference on European Tort Law (ACET)
