1951 Land Expropriation Legislation

The legislation about property and expropriation are dealt with in the Constitution of Japan, whereas the issue of compensation is the object of the 1951 Land Expropriation Law (hereafter LEL), enacted under article 29, paragraph 3 of the Constitution, as a general frame of reference regarding “compulsory land acquisition for the public use” (Lum, 2007: 461). 2.2.1 The Constitution of Japan The issue of expropriation is dealt with in article 29, paragraph 3 of the Japanese Constitution: Art. 29: The right to own or to hold property is inviolable. Property rights shall be defined by law, in conformity with the public welfare. Private property may be taken for public use upon just compensation therefor. The formulation of article 29 of the

Similarly, both Constitution allow expropriation “in the public interest” (Constitution of the PRC) or “for public use” (Constitution of Japan), provided that compensation is delivered. According to the Japanese constitutional text, compensation must be “just” (art. 29); nevertheless, no further specification about how it must be computed are provided. 2.2.1 The Land Expropriation Act The issue of expropriation of land for the public use is developed in the Land Expropriation Act or Land Expropriation Law (LEL) of 1951, whose primary intent is to “balance the promotion of public benefits and protection of public rights” (Lum, 2007: 462). In comparison with the Chinese procedure, a new element is introduced: an expropriation, in order to be lawful and in the public interest, must be declared as such by the Japanese Minister of Construction (Lum, 2007: 461). Even though the LEL provides clear guidelines, these are often overlooked in favor of a mediation process involving the project developer, landowner and other interested parties; only in case an agreement is not reached, the LEL provisions are recurred to (Lum, 2007: 462). This sheds light on a feature of East Asian systems in general: the primacy of mediation over

Therefore, they were compelled to search for alternative housing solutions far away from the city center, where rents are more affordable. Moving away from the neighborhood of residence determined a significant depletion in the living condition of the affected people who were forced to move far away from jobs, schools, healthcare facilities and to bear longer commutes to reach their place of employment (COHRE, 2007: 14). 3.2 Compensation in Japan The requirement of “just compensation” is codified in the Japanese Constitution (Constitution of Japan, Art. 29, paragraph 3); similarly to the Chinese case, no further explanation on the meaning of “just” is provided. Due to the Japanese preference to mediation and negotiation between parties over court litigation, achieving consensus between the interested parties is deemed to be a condicio sine qua non (can I write it or it sounds exaggerate?) for any decision concerning property (Porter and McAllin, 2003: 599-607) In Japan, the doctrine of eminent domain is seldom recurred to, as it emerges from the very few number of reported eminent domain cases (Port and McAllin, 2003: 607). The Japanese executive rather opts for achieving a consensus by means of a mediation process carried out between parties (Lum,