Author: mtrezise

The (federal government’s) Australian Research Council has provided $260,000 to support a project led by Prof Luke Nottage, Prof Leon Trakman (lead-CI, former Dean of Law at UNSW), A/Prof Jurgen Kurtz (Melbourne Law School) and Dr Shiro Armstrong (ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, co-editor of the East Asia Forum blog).
The abstract for this project is as follows:
“This project will evaluate the economic and legal risks associated with the Australian Government’s current policy on investor-state dispute settlement through multidisciplinary research, namely econometric modeling, empirical research through stakeholder surveys and interviews, as well as critical analysis of case law, treaties and regulatory approaches. The aim of this project is to identify optimal methods of investor-state dispute prevention, avoidance and resolution that efficiently cater to inbound and outbound investors as well as Australia as a whole. The goal is to promote a positive climate for investment inflows and outflows, while maintaining Australia’s ability to take sovereign decisions on matters of public policy.”
The following is a list of publications related to the project (published as at 1 April 2015, or forthcoming).

Continue reading “Publications listing – ARC Grant & Foreign Direct Investment”

Written by Joel Rheuben (University of Tokyo)
As reported in the New York Times earlier this month (and by the Sydney Morning Herald some two weeks later), Beate Sirota Gordon sadly passed away in the final days of 2012, aged 89. While the Times’ obituary provides an adequate summary of her life’s achievements, scholars of Japanese law will likely best know of Ms Gordon as the only female civilian member in the Government Section of the postwar Occupation forces, recounted in her 1998 autobiography, “The Only Woman in the Room” (now astonishingly overpriced on Amazon: see her verbal summary on YouTube instead).

Continue reading “Guest blog – Vale Beate Gordon (with a reflection on marriage equality in Japan)”

Written by: Joel Rheuben (University of Tokyo, LLM Program)
More than a year on from the near-meltdown of several reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company (“TEPCO”), the plant’s owner and operator, is continuing the slow process of compensating evacuees and others from the area surrounding the plant for damage to property and loss of income and livelihood as a result of the disaster. According to TEPCO’s website, as at 1 June 2012, the company had processed some 668,000 of a total of 764,000 (and counting) claims, provisionally worth JPY 856.6 billion (USD 11.7 billion).

Continue reading “Guest Blog: “Bureaucratic Capture” in Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Compensation Scheme?”

Please see below for the latest set of presentation abstracts for ANJeL’s upcoming conference on “Socio-legal Norms in Preventing and Managing Disasters in Japan: Asia-Pacific and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, to be presented on 1-2 March 2012. The full collection of abstracts are now available on this blog, with previous abstracts to be found at the following posts:
Abstracts 1
Abstracts 2
Abstracts 3
Abstracts 4
This conference will compare the preparedness for large-scale disasters and subsequent responses in Japan, focusing on the earthquake and tsunami that devastated north-east Japan on 11 March 2011 and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant radiation leaks.
For more information and registrations please visit http://sydney.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=39&eventid=9063.

Continue reading “ANJeL Anniversary Conference (1-2 March 2012): Abstracts (5)”

The latest presentation abstracts are now available below. Previously published blog entries containing abstracts prepared by other speakers for ANJeL’s Anniversary Conference on Socio-legal Norms in Preventing and Managing Disasters in Japan: Asia-Pacific and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, to be presented on 1-2 March 2012, can be found here (1), here (2) and here (3).
This conference will compare the preparedness for large-scale disasters and subsequent responses in Japan, focusing on the earthquake and tsunami that devastated north-east Japan on 11 March 2011 and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant radiation leaks.
For more information and registrations please visit http://sydney.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=39&eventid=9063.

Continue reading “ANJeL Anniversary Conference (1-2 March 2012): Abstracts (4)”

A new set of presentation abstracts is now available below. Abstracts prepared by other speakers for ANJeL’s Anniversary Conference on Socio-legal Norms in Preventing and Managing Disasters in Japan: Asia-Pacific and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, to be presented on 1-2 March 2012, can be found here and here.
The purpose of this conference is to compare the preparedness for large-scale disasters and subsequent responses in Japan, focusing on the earthquake and tsunami that devastated north-east Japan on 11 March 2011 and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant radiation leaks.
For more information and registrations please visit this page.

Continue reading “ANJeL Anniversary Conference (1-2 March 2012): Abstracts (3)”