Compensation Of Harm Research Articles

Rechtliche Bewältigung der Haftung für Massenschäden im Deutschen Recht

The law on civil liability and civil procedure in force in Germany are in general designed to deal with the compensation of individual harm, and may not deal so adequately with mass torts. Because of this in many areas a corresponding reform of or addition to the legal rules is required. The law on civil liability is primarily called upon to provide the basis for an appropriate compensation for damage. A failure to satisfy this function should not therefore be accepted. Nor is this fundamental mission affected by the fact that the compensation for damage, which is determined by the rules of civil liability, in many areas intersects with systems for collective insurance and collecting measures for dealing with damage, such as for example liability, sickness and social insurance; for even in these cases as soon as one deals with the subrogated claim against the defendant, reference is made to the normal rules of civil liability, so that these must contain rules appropriate to mass torts.

Analysis of risk in taking measures for radiation and social protection of the public

The necessity of risk analysis for support of radiation and public protection measures and substantiated application of risk analysis for the development of a scientific-methodological and normative-legal base is examined. Recommendations are given for the development and use of risk analysis. For radiation accidents, a priori and postfactum risk assessment and harm must be distinguished (before and after an accident has occurred). In the latter case, detailed risk assessment is needed, especially to establish a link between sickness and the accident as well as for compensation of harm to the health of victims. A collection of risk indicators for different applications is given. A new additional risk indicator is proposed. This indicator is the relative loss of duration of life (lost years of life, referred to the year during which the source of risk acted). It is intended for establishing a universal limit on risk, suitable for any source of risk. The value of this basic limit is proposed and values of dose and risk limits derived from it for ionizing radiation and other sources of risk are presented. Requirements for methods of dose and risk assessment are formulated. 3 figures, 1 table, 16 references.