Start Date: 9/19/2014 Start Time: 8:30 AM End Date: 9/19/2014 End Time: 6:30 PM
UC Hastings - Mary Kay Kane Hall Room: ARC
Unprecedented disasters test the ability of law and lawyers in providing relief to their disasters exactly because they are beyond imaginations and law and lawyers are unprepared for them. The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station caused by the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami in an unprecedented scale on March 11, 2011 was one of them.
?Although the area was known for the risk of a massive earthquake and tsunami for centuries, that risk was downgraded when the station was constructed in 1967. When the earthquake occurred and tsunami hit the station on March 11, 2011, electricity was lost, the cooling system failed, meltdown occurred, and, ultimately, hydrogen explosions happened, spewing nuclear contaminated air to surrounding areas. The accident was considered worse than the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979 and equal to that of Chernobyl in 1986. 113,000 residents had to evacuate, which accounted for more than 90% of the entire people who had to leave their residences after the earthquake. Eight municipal governments were also moved to other places far away from their original locations; they had to take care of their residents who were widely dispersed nearly all over Japan. This situation posed an enormous challenge for law and lawyers. How can people seek remedies for their damages? What new laws are required to help local governments and residents? Do the devastated areas have a sufficient number of lawyers who can handle such tasks, and how outside lawyers can help if they are insufficient? How can we provide legal services to relocated local governments and dispersed residents? A group of faculty members and affiliated lawyers of Waseda University Law School organized a project to meet these and other challenges in the legal aftermath of this disaster, including their own activities in the devastated areas.
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