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Blood Justice: Courts, Conflict, and Compensation in Japan, France, and the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Eric A. Feldman
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Abstract

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In the mid-1980s, many blood transfusion recipients and close to half of Japanese, American, and French hemophiliacs realized that they had been infected with HIV-contaminated blood. In this article I argue that the legal conflicts over HIV-tainted blood in those three nations defy conventional comparative claims about courts, conflict, and compensation. I first describe the similar policy responses of France, Japan, and the United States as public health officials came to realize that HIV threatened the safety of the blood supply. I then focus on what happened when infected individuals began to demand redress. I argue that the mobilization around law by plaintiffs, the centrality of the courts in handling conflicts over HIV and blood, and bold, innovative responses by the judiciary were not distinctive characteristics of the American conflict. Instead, law and courts in all three nations were central players in the battles over blood. Most strikingly, in comparison to courts in the United States, those in France and Japan have been significantly more responsive to plaintiffs' claims. When one looks beyond the courts to legal and legislative action more broadly, the United States has been the least accepting of the plethora of demands for recompense.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , 2000 , pp. 651 - 701
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

I am grateful to the following friends and colleagues for their comments on an earlier draft of this article: Charles Epp, Malcolm Feeley, Christine Harrington, David Kirp, Christopher Kutz, Alvin Novick, Marc Rodwin, Frank Upham, four anonymous reviewers for the Law and Society Review, participants in the “Sho Sato Conference on Japanese Law: The Responses to New Challenges,” especially the organizer, Harry Scheiber, and members of the research group on “Pax Americana,” particularly Hiroshi Shibuya. Alexandra Hodges provided extraordinary research assistance on the French case, Anita Sandoval was an invaluable production assistant, and Monika Steffen was a kind and generous colleague during my stay in Paris. My research and writing were supported by an Abe Fellowship from the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership/Social Science Research Council. Yale University's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (NIMH and NIDA Grant #P01 MH/DA56826-01A1), and New York University's Stephen Charney Vladeck Junior Faculty Fellowship provided additional support.

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