A Comparative Look at No-Fault Compensation Schemes for Vaccination Harm in Australia, Italy and Germany
On Wednesday 17 May 2023, the Health Law and Ethics Network co-hosted a hybrid seminar with the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies on vaccination compensation schemes with Bill Madden (Melbourne Law Masters program and a lawyer in private practice with Carroll & O'Dea Lawyers) and Irene Carlet (a doctoral candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich, Germany).
Compensating harms from vaccination is one of the topical matters that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond the pandemic, the matter lies at the heart of the problem of state intervention in the personal sphere for collective goals. Some countries have created No-Fault Compensation Schemes (“NFCSs”) to address harms arising from vaccination. NFCSs are politically desirable to incentivize vaccination development and may play a role in responding to known and emerging infectious diseases threats. At the same time, NFCSs address the ethical and legal concerns over the distribution of risks associated with public immunisation. They also raise questions about the level of solidarity and equity that is politically, legally and constitutionally required in a society. This presentation explores these issues by comparing the regulation on compensation for vaccine-related harm across Australia, Italy and Germany.
View the event recording
About the presenters
Bill Madden is a Senior Fellow in the Melbourne Law Masters program and a lawyer in private practice with Carroll & O'Dea Lawyers. He is a co-author of Australian Medical Liability (4th edition) and the pending second edition of Institutional Abuse of Children: Legal Remedies and Redress in Australia, both published by Lexis Nexis. Bill is an editorial board member for Australian Civil Liability and for Australian Health Law Bulletin, both also published by Lexis Nexis.
His blog 'billmaddens.wordpress.com' covers medical liability, abuse compensation and related civil liability law issues.
Irene Carlet is a doctoral candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich, Germany. She is currently a visiting researcher at Melbourne Law School. She graduated from Trento University in 2019 with a master’s dissertation on constitutional and healthcare law. During her studies, she spent a semester at Newcastle Law School in England. Before starting her Ph.D., she worked at Baker McKenzie in the Rome office, focusing her practice on healthcare, compliance and administrative law matters. As a Ph.D. candidate, she explores the relationship between vaccination policies and the protection of the right to health, with a focus on no-fault compensation schemes in legal systems.