ABSTRACT
The largest case involving Korean occupancy rights was still unresolved at the time of writing. It involved the attempted eviction in 1988 of an entire Korean neighborhood from land that they had occupied since the end of Second World War. The area is included in the City of Uji in Kyoto Prefecture, only twenty minutes by train from Kyoto Central Station. It is called Utoro, a name so unusual that it is sometimes assumed to be Korean, especially as, uniquely among place names, no Chinese characters are used for it, but it is apparently local dialect meaning ‘a hollow.’ The area had been acquired by the Nissan Chassis Company which in the 1960s held occasional negotiations with the settlers, sometimes through the Soren, about the status of the land and possible arrangement for the settlers to purchase it or to resettle elsewhere. Nissan proposed a plan to settle both the land ownership and the water issue.
