Compensating Asbestos Victims

This book traces the emergence and transformations of asbestos compensation to explore the wider issue of to what extent legal systems have converged in the era of globalization. Examining the mechanism by which asbestos compensation is delivered in Belgium, England, Italy and the United States, as well as the cultural forces and actors which contribute to its emergence and transformations, the book advances our understanding of how law operates within cultural norms, routines, and institutional relations of capitalist societies. With material gathered from 50 interviews and from primary and secondary sources, the author considers law as a cultural phenomenon, national styles of legal culture and the convergence and divergence of legal cultures, and law as a form of institutionalized power.

Author Biography

Andrea Boggio is Associate Professor of Legal Studies at Bryant University, Rhode Island, USA. His research focuses on the legal and ethical issues connected to and health, science, and technology and on the relationship between law, capitalism, and the welfare state. His research interests are in the areas of: Legal Philosophy and Reasoning; Legal Ethics; Science, Law, and Human Values; and Social Science and Legal Decision Making. He has published widely on these and related areas. He earned a doctoral degree from Stanford University and completed his post-doc training at the University of Geneva. He taught at the Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele University in England.