ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the roles of laws relating to post-tsunami management in Thailand, both immediate reactions after the tsunami through short-term solutions and gradual structural responses through long-term solutions. The 2005 Emergency Decree on Public Administration in State of Emergency was made to deal with the urgent situation and served as the core legislation for dealing with the tsunami disaster. The government focused on the ecological destruction of the affected areas, and therefore applied Sections 9, 10 and Sections 43, 44 of the 1992 Enhancement and Conservation of National Environmental Quality Act (ECNEQA) to apply with the case. The former provision for permitting the Prime Minister power to respond to the disaster, and the latter provisions for applying special measures of areas called "areas designated as environmentally protected areas" within the disaster-affected areas. The coastal erosion measures are elaborated by the Ministerial Regulation of the Ministry for Natural Resources and Environment.
