INTRODUCTION

Standing alongside tort, liability and insurance for the resolution of mass harm are alternative compensation systems. Alternative compensation systems can be broadly described as a redress structure that provides compensation to victims of accidents and other misfortune where tort law, insurance law or social security law provide no or insufficient compensation. They stand on the margins of tort law and its corrective justice goals, and come in all shapes and sizes. Alternative compensation systems are well suited to managing instances of mass harms because large-scale loss generally matches the common purposes and motivations for creating such alternative frameworks.

A number of alternative compensation systems will be touched upon in the individual country case study entries in this volume, where such frameworks have been selected by legislatures as the relevant system or framework in that jurisdiction for the resolution of specific types of mass harm. However, in this chapter we consider the nature of alternative compensation systems in general, and how they are relevant to the regulation and compensation of mass harm events within Europe. There are now so many examples of these alternative frameworks throughout Europe (and globally) that it not appropriate to consider them as an anomaly or only relevant at the fringes of tort law. It is important to distil their common characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. This enables alternative compensation systems, as a social and legal tool of mass harm management and resolution, to be used thoughtfully, appropriately and fairly, and in a way that is legally coherent with the wider context of an individual legal system.

In this chapter, there will be a brief description of the common features of an alternative compensation system. These frameworks can be found worldwide, but the European experience will be the focus of this chapter. There will be consideration of the category of loss that is typically covered by such frameworks, and consideration of the factual theme or function of loss covered by these systems. There will then be discussion of the important issues relating to alternative compensation systems that are relevant to a general analysis of mass harm in a European context.