(1)  Researchers’ Activities
First meeting; held by the Kansai Asian Law Research Association

The first meeting was held by the Asian Law Research Association at Kansai University on May 18th. In this meeting two researchers from the center; Noriyuki ASANO and Kenji YOTSUMOTO had been the key persons for preparation. There were many participants from outside the Kansai area; for instance, Fukuoka prefecture had attended the meeting.

All presenters of this first meeting were researchers from “The Disabled Persons and Law in the Developing Countries, focusing on Asian countries; from the prospect of Legal Rights Establishment”, which is a research project of the Asian Economic Research Center. The result of this joint research will be published soon. One of the proposes of this joint research is to clarify the conditions on establishing the disabled persons’ rights, by surveys and analyzes on ①Legislation for disabled persons ②System of right to redress ③ Litigation or petition, to find out about the conditions that the treaty of Rights has been facing with; for example, non-discriminatory, equity under the law and ability to access the judiciary.

This joint research focuses on 7 countries; however, in this meeting, examples from Cambodia (by YOTSUMOTO researcher), Thai (by Kikuo NISHISAWA researcher), and India (by ASANO researcher) were used for discussion on the facts that rights of the disabled persons have been neglected in the legislation and interpretation of law. Furthermore, a specific process for right establishment has been demonstrated, and actively discussed.

Nobuo KOCHU (Professor of Kansai University, Faculty of Policy Studies, Director of Center for Minority Studies)