The Japanese Government’s Liability around the Nuclear Disaster: or, Edano Got Game

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano has quietly but firmly made it clear that the Japanese government is jointly and severally liable (he apparently invented what appears to be a retronym—真正連帯債務—to emphasize the point) for damages arising from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Yesterday (? Monday), he went on record as saying that the government and Tepco would be responsible for half each of the (according to the latest estimates) 4 trillion yen tab. When everybody is finding it convenient to dump on Tepco, he’s injecting a little lawyerly reality into the process without being called a Tepco lackey. That’s quite a feat.