ABSTRACT
In 1972 The United States Congress enacted the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA). The CPSA resulted from the findings and proposals of the National Commission on Product Safety. The CPSA provides for five Commissioners, but due to budgetary cuts this has been reduced to three. There can only be a majority of one in the political suasion of the Commissioners. The choice of a Commission rather than an executive agency was in order to give it a large degree of political independence. There are numerous standards' writing organisations. The three with which the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) works most closely are the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and the Underwriters' Laboratories (UL). The United States law lacks the symbolism of a general safety duty. There is no positive duty to market only safe products in the United States.
