Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
corroborates how humans have come to rely upon this fundamental human trait. Leadership in universities, companies, religious institutions, and governments alike have opportunities to cultivate our instincts to cooperate, and in particular to join together to redevelop after disasters. Robust Public Participation and Access to Justice Disasters produce refugees and social disruption. Once the immediate disaster has passed, rebuilding is more than just a physical construction question. At essence, the process of developing anew after a disaster presents questions of reuniting families, and neighborhoods and social relationships. It entails restoring livelihoods and the building blocks of local economies. It envelops "winners and losers." For social order to be restored, all stakeholders, all individuals, and economic interests need a place at the table to plan their futures. Governments have developed a suite of rights and rules and procedures to do so, and must now examine how to ensure due process in the new construction phases after a disaster. The norms for environmental justice, for civil rights and for human rights, are well elaborated. What special means must be provided to ensure that these rights are observed in the post-disaster phases? Fundamental democracy—a civic polity—requires that simple and fair listening and consulting processes be in place at once after a disaster. Without such procedures, social unrest will ensue and recovery will be delayed or disrupted. Planners need to provide for public participation in recovery decision-making. For ill-equipped and recovering refugee populations, ombudsmen may be needed to advocate for those who lack the capacity to do so themselves. Their roles need to be defined and made legitimate before the disaster. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, upper and middle class homes were rebuilt, but the voices for affordable housing had inadequate access. Social inequities were arguably exacerbated in New Orleans. The planning process for public participation is well known. Strategic environmental impact assessment is already a part of sophisticated planning. The UN Declaration of Rio de Janeiro on Environment and Development in 1992, in Principle 10 calls for all nations to provide access to information, procedures for public participation, and access to justice in environmental decision-making. These provisions are a part of the federal and state Freedom of Information Acts, a part of our environmental impact statement procedures, a part of our notice and comment rule-making under the federal and state Administrative Procedure Acts, and are subject to judicial review. Some agencies, such as the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, provide "public participation" specialists to assist the public in know-how to exercise their rights to participate. Are such services even more essential after community systems have collapsed? Post-disaster development will need to conform to the standard elements of due process of law. How to do so, in the context of clearing destroyed areas and deploying new development, poses complex and little-considered challenges. Due process of law provides well-accepted practices that need careful study to determine how that may best be adapted and integrated into the planning and process of post-disaster reconstruction. This remains to be done, and until it is done, recovery processes will be flawed and ridden with more controversy than they deserve. Phased and Adaptive Sustainable Development Many substantive reforms are needed to facilitate post-disaster new and sustainable socio-economic development. Pace Law School's Land Use Center has researched and 41