The Rough Path to the Compensation of Asbestos Damages in China

Nadia Coggiola
Additional contact information
Nadia Coggiola: Department of Management, Università degli Studi di Torino, 10134 Torino, Italy

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: The article investigates the issue of asbestos damages compensation in China. Today, China is a major player in the global market of asbestos production and consumption. Therefore, a large number of Chinese workers are employed in the asbestos industries and an even larger number of individuals are exposed to asbestos for non-occupational reasons. Although there is no official data on the numbers of asbestos-related diseases in China, it is estimated that a significant part of the population developed asbestos-related diseases and that there will be an augmentation of those diseases in the future. This article examines the Chinese legal provisions on the prevention, control, and compensation of asbestos related diseases; both in cases of environmental and occupational exposures, and analyzes if and when those provisions are applied. This research shows that although the laws and the regulations enacted by the Chinese government provide protection for those exposed to asbestos dust, and entitle them to some compensation or indemnity where those exposures caused damages, the implementation of those rules is actually very difficult, due to a variety of different reasons. Those reasons can vary from problems in the interpretation and implementation of the laws and regulations, to difficulties in the access to justice and in the adjudication by the courts, regarding occupational and environmental damages. In most of these cases, the consequences of these problems are a poor and inefficient protection of the victims of the asbestos exposures for the damages suffered.

Keywords: China; asbestos damages; compensation; bodily damages; health damages; occupational damages; environmental damages; law and society; law and politics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/8/1431/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/8/1431/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:8:p:1431-:d:108507

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().