Written by fifteen leading academics from the Japan Society for International Development (JASID), this book undertakes a review of Japan's economic development over the last 150 years, and seeks to clarify Japanese priorities in domestic and foreign policy for the coming decades.

This book is a critical analysis of several of the most disaster-prone regions in Asia. Its unique focus is on the legal issues in the phase of disaster recovery, the most lengthy and difficult stage of disaster response that follows the conclusion of initial emergency stage of humanitarian aid. In the stage of disaster recovery, the law decides the fate of reconstruction for the individual houses and livelihoods of the disaster-affected people and sets the limit of governmental support for them during the lengthy period of suspension of normal living until full recovery is obtained. Researchers who were participant-observers in the difficult recovery phase after the mega-disasters in Asia analyse the reality of the functions of law which often hinder, rather than foster, efforts to restore disaster victims' lives. The book collects research conducted with an emphasis on empirical approaches to legal sociology, including direct interviews with people affected by the disaster. It offers a holistic approach beyond the traditional sectionalism of legal studies by starting with a historical review and incorporating both spheres of public law and private law, in order to obtain a new perspective that can concurrently achieve disaster risk reductions and human-centered recoveries. With particular emphasis on the unexplored area of law in the post-disaster recovery phase, this book will attract the attention of students and scholars of disaster studies, legal studies, Asian studies, as well as those who work in the practice of disaster management.

This book is a critical analysis of several of the most disaster-prone regions in Asia. Its unique focus is on the legal issues in the phase of disaster recovery, the most lengthy and difficult stage of disaster response that follows the conclusion of initial emergency stage of humanitarian aid. In the stage of disaster recovery, the law decides the fate of reconstruction for the individual houses and livelihoods of the disaster-affected people and sets the limit of governmental support for them during the lengthy period of suspension of normal living until full recovery is obtained. Researchers who were participant-observers in the difficult recovery phase after the mega-disasters in Asia analyse the reality of the functions of law which often hinder, rather than foster, efforts to restore disaster victims' lives. The book collects research conducted with an emphasis on empirical approaches to legal sociology, including direct interviews with people affected by the disaster. It offers a holistic approach beyond the traditional sectionalism of legal studies by starting with a historical review and incorporating both spheres of public law and private law, in order to obtain a new perspective that can concurrently achieve disaster risk reductions and human-centered recoveries. With particular emphasis on the unexplored area of law in the post-disaster recovery phase, this book will attract the attention of students and scholars of disaster studies, legal studies, Asian studies, as well as those who work in the practice of disaster management.

International society led by the United Nations has been working to improve and standardize every country's post-disaster recovery policy. In particular, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction adopted at the UN World Conference at Sendai, Japan, in 2015 declared the slogan "Build Back Better (BBB)." In this book, the BBB is considered an essential common criterion for evaluating recovery status, but BBB variations in each individual country's context are pursued. In contrast to a governmental approach to recovery evaluation focusing mainly on physical structures and macro indicators, this volume focuses more on the affected societies, communities, economies, and especially victims' livelihoods. The authors are academics from diverse fields, including governance, law, economics, and engineering, so that the book is truly interdisciplinary. This collection results from an international collaboration by scholars from "disaster-affected universities" in global-scale mega-disasters occurring in the Asian region in recent decades. The universities include Kobe University in Japan; Iwate University in Japan; Syiah Kuala University in Aceh, Indonesia; Sichuan University in China; and the University of the Philippines.