Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
School of Law Beyond Disaster Management: Adaptively Resilient Re-Development Nicholas A. Robinson Pace Law School, White Plains, NY The Pace University "Summit on Resilience" approached, but did not address, a fundamental question posed by Pace University President Stephen J. Friedman: "When disaster hits, what happens after law enforcement and humanitarian efforts?" The panels at the Resilience Summit ably dealt with how first responders address a disaster, and how companies and governments prepare for responding. On the scale of the recovery from the 9/11 disaster in lower Manhattan, most agreed that government and private sector rebuilding worked responsively and collaboratively within existing legal and economic systems. Few speakers went on to probe what governments and other stakeholders can or should do to reset social and economic systems disrupted by a major disaster wider in scope than 9/11. Debates at the Pace Summit demonstrated the need for further study about how socio-economic and governance systems might be rethought in order to enhance their resilience in the wake of disasters. This essay explores some of the questions that might usefully address re-development in the wake of large-scale disasters. The Indus River Valley was a model of sustainable development, benefitting from a treaty brokered by the World Bank between India and Pakistan in 1960 to ensure a peaceful allocation of Indus River waters. The Valley had schools, clinics, and small dams to supply irrigation and generate electricity. It had a high standard of living with rural electrification. These remarkable achievements by several generations—and the livelihoods of rich and poor alike—were obliterated in 2010-11 by two years of massive floods that wiped out 1,400,000 acres of farms, roads, bridges, and human settlements. Neither Pakistan nor the global aid community has the resources to rebuild the communities and economies of the Indus River Valley. The recovery of much (but not yet all) of New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the still on-going recovery of lower Manhattan after 9/11, are attributable to the fact that the areas devastated were far smaller than the vast Indus River valley. Moreover, the capacity of both federal and state governments to respond from outside the disaster zone was hardly affected by the disasters. The United States has yet to experience a disaster of such vast proportions that would impair its capacity to respond. What if the United States had to reallocate its budget and personnel to address the recovery and rebuilding of an area comparable in size to that which Japan had to evacuate, and has still not yet determined how to rebuild, in the aftermath of the March 2011 Tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster? In Japan, 200,000 were evacuated and many may never be allowed to return to their homes. In the wake of that disaster, social unrest is reshaping once settled laws and investments and development programs for how electricity is generated or where coastal development will be allowed, among other issues. One may reflect on why the Great Hanshin Earthquake of January 1995 that demolished Kobe was "small" enough to let that city rebuild (with external help) but the recovery from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster remains elusive. 37