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SUMMARY:Rescuing homeless tsunami victims by law - Julius Weitzdörfer (Fa
 culty of Law\, University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20141125T131000Z
DTEND:20141125T140000Z
UID:TALK53930@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Duncan Needham
DESCRIPTION:The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 unleashed unprecedente
 d tremors and a tsunami up to twelve metres high\, which travelled ten kil
 ometres inland\, leaving thousands of buildings collapsed\, burnt or swept
  away. Over 200.000 homes had to be written off entirely\, rendering 300.0
 00 victims homeless overnight and cramped in emergency housing to this day
 . Dispossessed and often jobless\, former home-owners and shopkeepers find
  themselves in the position to be seeking loans to rebuild\, while being u
 nable to pay off pre-disaster mortgages. This so-called “double-loan cri
 sis” entrenches social inequality\, fuels loan-sharking and debt suicide
 \, promotes homelessness and insolvency\, and threatens local financial in
 stitutions\, constituting a major obstacle to disaster recovery.\n\nBased 
 on field research and inspired by personal experience of several earthquak
 es in Japan\, I will examine the situation of homeless\, indebted tsunami 
 victims from a legal perspective. Touching upon issues of disaster managem
 ent\, real property and insolvency law\, banking regulation\, social welfa
 re and charity\, the talk critically assesses policy responses to the “d
 ouble-loan crisis” by the Government and NGOs. Drawing on scholarship fr
 om Japan\, I will discuss post-disaster distributive justice and the way i
 n which burdens of risk and recovery are shared between victims and societ
 y in the wake of the world’s costliest natural disaster.\n\nJulius Weitz
 doerfer is a new Charles and Katharine Darwin Research Fellow. He studied 
 journalism and Japanese in Tokyo and Leipzig as well as law in Hamburg\, S
 hanghai\, Kyoto and Cambridge. He was an editor and co-host on national ra
 dio and television (NHK) in Japan and is currently completing a monograph 
 on financial crimes in Japan. His work covers vibrant aspects of Japanese 
 law\, including organized crime\, criminal trials\, consumer protection\, 
 disaster response and the Fukushima liability case.
LOCATION:The Richard King Room\, Darwin College
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