네덜란드 인디스인 사회보상법제를 통해 바라본 한국 사회보상법: 사회보상법에 의한 피해자성 인정을 중심으로

The May 18 Compensation Act arguably is the model for social compensation for past state wrong-doings in South Korea. Recently, both the Korean Constitutional Court and the Korean legislator decided that the May 18 Compensation Act did not adequately recognize all victims nor all harm done. The Court found the exclusion of psychological damage unconstitutional while the legislator amended the act to include sexual violence as harm suffered by May 18 survivors. Like the May 18 survivors, Dutch people originally from the Dutch Indies (so-called Indisch Dutch) have long fought for compensation for harm caused by decolonization of the Dutch East Indies. In both cases, state compensation failed to not only fulfill the victims’ need for material compensation but also their need for recognition of what they had been through. However, when looking at the legislation of Dutch compensation law itself, some interesting differences come to light. Dutch Compensation law contains provisions that allow for the symbolic recognition of victims, even if their suffering did not (yet) sufficiently merit compensation itself, because it de facto separates recognition of victimhood from entitlement to compensation. A study of this can contribute to the of South law improvement social compensation Korea, in especially the May 18 Compensation Act, which seemingly failed to adequately address the demands for recognition of many victims (like those who suffered sexual violence). This study first provides an analytical framework based on the concept of victim identity, and then examines the legislative history of social compensation for the Indisch-Dutch. It then makes a comparison with and draws implications for Korean social compensation law related to past state wrong doings.