국내외 석면피해 소송의 현황과 문제점

Recently many people who lived near asbestos mining in ChungCheongnam- do, S outh Korea were found to have asbestos-related diseases. The major use of asbestos started in the 1960s, however asbestos-related diseases may have not appeared more than 20 years after the exposure has occurred and the number of victims will increase in the future, therefore suits are expected to follow. Under the tort system, victims bear the burden of identifying a specific product, and proving that asbestos caused their illness. Victims also face difficulties in identifying the cause of the claimant's exposure, resulting in is a lag of several years between the filing and resolution of a suit. Furthermore, suits by impaired claimants have bankrupted companies. In America and Japan, there is widespread agreement that the current tort system does not fairly compensate asbestos victims. As a result, the bill was enacted and made into a bill in Japan(Introduced in the U. S. Senate). The purposes is to ensure that people who become sick, as a result of exposure to asbestos, are compensated surely, fairly, and quickly. Our current tort system lacks the capacity to resolve the claims of asbestos victims. It is time to make a social consensus that creates an alternative compensation system to better resolve the claims of these victims and maintain some surveillance programs.