Social Security Legislation Throughout The World

The book examines whether small jurisdictions (states) are confronted with specific issues providing social security and how to deal with these issues. How is social security law impacted by the smallness of the jurisdiction? First, the author examines the key concepts ‘small jurisdiction’ and ‘social security’ as he understands them in the present research. He then pays some attention to the relation between social security and social security law and subsequently makes an excursion to explore the notion of legal transplants. In the second part, the author first examines the main features characterizing small states according to the general literature on small states, focusing on features which may be relevant to social security. He also includes an overview of the (limited) literature dealing with the specific social security issues small jurisdictions have to deal with. In other words, the second part provides the reader with the status quaestionis. In the third part, the author takes a look at the social security systems of 20 selected small jurisdictions. He does so according to a uniform scheme, in order to facilitate their comparison. These 20 case studies allow him in a next part to test the correctness of the statements made in Part 2. In the fourth part, he compares the social security systems of the 20 small jurisdictions. He draws conclusions as to the main question, but also to test the validity of the current literature on the topic as described in Part 2. Special attention goes to the use of legal transplants for the definition of the personal scope of social security arrangements. In the concluding part of the book, the author formulates some suggestions for the benefit of the social security systems of the small jurisdictions, based on his research.

Everybody uses the term social security, but definitions vary widely. This unique book may be conceived as a wide-ranging definition, although in fact it emphasizes only part of the concept: that administrative function that grants cash benefits to offset or compensate for such social risks as old age, disability, unemployment, costs of health care, and other instances occasioning the lack of means necessary for a decent existence. In an earlier form (1993), this book proved itself as a much-sought-after introduction to the field, for governments as much as for law students. In this completely revised and updated work, Professor Pieters again offers, this time to a new generation of scholars and policymakers, a common language and structure with which to talk and think about social security. The presentation is both abstract (theory of social security) and concise (structure of social security systems). In taking into account the diversity of ways in which social security has been shaped by priorities of place and time, Dr Pieters delineates the distinct alternatives that can be adhered to in establishing a social security system. He builds a frame in which these various concepts, principles, options, and techniques can be put into perspective. Although this approach hints at a common law of social security, Dr Pieters goes no further in that direction than a brief general survey (in his last chapter) of the possible features of a comparative social security law. Social Security: An Introduction to the Basic Principles is sure to find a welcome among many sectors of the legal and policy communities. Full of insight and information, and eminently readable, the book may be seen in a number of different ways: as a road map explaining the social security systems of various states; as an overview of the various options available for building a social security system; as an exploration of the possibilities of rethinking or reforming an existing system; as the first tentative step toward a scientific discipline of comparative social security law; and much else besides.