This book offers a legal analysis of the social protection measures taken by welfare states across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The twenty-one country studies in this book set out in detail how the social law measures adopted during the pandemic interacted with existing welfare state institutions, what their legal nature was, how the relationship between collective risk and individual responsibility was negotiated during the crisis, what unique challenges countries faced in implementing a crisis response, and whether any long-term changes to each welfare state can be expected from the experiences of the pandemic. In doing so, it provides the first global study of social law during the COVID-19 pandemic.