The role of international organizations in disaster response: A case study of recent earthquakes in Japan

This chapter considers the legal and policy reactions of the Japanese government to the international offers of assistance received in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, and the earlier offers of aid in the wake of the 1995 Kobe earthquake. The Japanese responses were incongruent-the earlier response generally being negative, the later response generally being positive or receptive. Not only does this chapter explore the reasons behind such incongruency it also charts the progression of international disaster response law (IDRL) from the period of the League of Nations to the present day and assesses the relative impact of both completed treaties and exercises undertaken to draft new laws throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.