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Introductory Note on the Revival of Customary Rights: An Implication from the Post-Disaster Eviction Cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2025

Yuka Kaneko Open the ORCID record for Yuka Kaneko [Opens in a new window]
Yuka Kaneko*
Affiliation:
GSICS, Kobe University, Nada, Kobe, Japan
*
Email: ykaneko@kobe-u.ac.jp
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Abstract

The term “customary law” is a label given by outsiders to what is simply the “law” for the local people. This article proposes an analytical framework for the case studies in this special issue in observing the normative contests through land and forestry dispute resolution in Asia and Africa, as a challenge to a changing regime of positive law under the pressures of contemporary “legal transplant.” A comparative view across jurisdictions may tell us the commonalities as well as the variation of the modes of normative modification through dialogues. As an attempt to demonstrate such an analytical approach, this article looks into the cases of normative resistance by local communities, similarly facing the eviction orders in the context of post-disaster reconstruction: in post-2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, and Moken villages in southern Thailand; in the post-2013 Typhoon Yolanda in Leyte, the Philippines; and post-2011 tsunami-affected communities in the East Japan.

Keywords

customary rightslegal transplantPositivitätlegal postulatepost-disaster eviction

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , First View , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society

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