• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.47-82
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• 2019

Inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation, in the process, will inevitably lead to various legal disputes, one of which is the issue of compensation for personal injury. The purpose of this study is to present the standards of settlement of disputes between the residents of North and South Korea by examining the North Korean compensation law on the calculation of damages due to personal injury and comparing it with the South Korean compensation law. Understanding the North Korean compensation law is a critical and urgent task, as exchanges and cooperation between the two Koreas are expected to increase in the future. For the South Korean compensation law does not have specific provisions on the estimation of damages, the specific methods and standards for estimating damages are determined by court precedents. The South Korean courts categorize the damages caused by personal injury into active property damages, passive property damages and emotional distress damages and calculate the amount of each damages. On the other hand, the North Korean Compensation for Damage Act stipulates the categories of damage by dividing the cases of personal injury into 1) infringement of health(§41), 2) disability due to infringement of health(§42), and 3) death resulting from human infringement(§44). In addition, the North Korea Compensation for Damage Act specifies the calculation of compensation for damages(§43, §51). Furthermore, South Korea widely acknowledges emotional distress damages for personal injury, whereas North Korea does not recognize emotional distress damages in principle.