Law, Normative Pluralism, and Post-Disaster Recovery

Evaluating the Post-Disaster Relocation and Housing Project of Typhoon Ketsana Victims in the Philippines

This book looks at how the multiplicity of formal and informal normative systems that actualize the post-disaster recovery goals of the country’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 has resulted in the inadequate housing and relocation of Typhoon Ketsana victims in the Philippines. Using the sociological and normative pluralist perspectives and the case study method, it evaluates the level of conformity of the components of the housing project according to international conventions and legal standards. It highlights the negative unintended consequences caused by the complex normative regimes of various competing stakeholders, rigid real estate regulation, and the unscrupulous involvement of powerful and ‘corrupt’ real estate developers and housing groups as largely contributing to the project’s deviation from the law’s proactive  objectives. This book attempts to promote the socio-legal perspectives which have long been overlooked in disaster research. Finally, it invites policymakers to enact a comprehensive disaster law and create a one-stop disaster management agency to improve the long-term rehabilitation of disaster victims in developing countries such as the Philippines.