ANJeL/JSAA “Japanese Law in Context” Podcasts Project

Overview: The Japan Foundation Sydney has provided $5000 for this project to produce and widely disseminate by mid-March 2020 a series of 15-20 video-recorded interviews or podcasts involving Japanese Law experts across Australia, Japan, North America and other parts of Asia. These recordings aim to: (a) supplement courses in Japanese Law (and Japanese Studies more generally) in universities; (b) increase community awareness and engagement with Japanese law in socio-economic and comparative context; (c) create a snapshot and oral history of Japanese Law studies – all mainly for Australia, but also for Japan and beyond.

This is a joint project between ANJeL (Australian Network for Japanese Law) and the JSAA (Japanese Studies Association of Australia). ANJeL Co-directors Profs Luke Nottage, Heather Roberts and Leon Wolff will be responsible for content planning and project coordination, while JSAA will administer funding for three former/current PhD students and Research Assistants (Ana Ubilava, Nobumichi Teramura and Melanie Trezise). Both JSAA and ANJeL will publicise the project outcomes via their websites and their own or affiliated networks.

Sydney Law School will also provide logistical support through a Canvas website for Zoom recordings (thanks to Ross West) and a video-recording/editing suite (thanks to Andy Netherington).

Project Description: The team will first schedule and conduct interactive interviews with Japanese law experts, and/or help them plan and present (one-way) podcasts, outlining distinctive features of their main field(s) in Japanese Law particularly from comparative, interdisciplinary and/or historical perspectives. Then we will edit down these recordings to around 10-15 minutes each, and upload on or via the websites of the cross-institutional ANJeL and the Japan Studies Association of Australia as well as Youtube.

These resources will be widely publicised to be used freely for Japanese Law courses taught particularly by ANJeL’s core universities (USydney, ANU and QUT) as well as others in Australia (including affiliates like UMelbourne), but the resources will also be available for Japanese or comparative law courses taught in Japan and further afield. They can be used to complement course readings, often written by interviewees/presenters, who may also be invited to join classes remotely (depending on time zones and availability). Depending on the topic area and personal preferences, the recordings will comprise interviews (sometimes involving multiple interviewers and/or interviews), or occasionally subject-matter podcast summaries or key points. Depending on the interviewees, some of whom are now more senior scholars, questions may invite more personal reflections (on how the Japanese Law sub-field or approaches to studying it have evolved) or prompt more direct comparisons with law and practice in Australia. Once edited and uploaded for public viewing, the recordings will be widely publicised through ANJeL and JSAA (each with many hundreds of members in Australia and abroad) as well as their affiliated and various websites (including this Blog), as a resource for the wider community.

The core group of those recorded will be co-lecturers in the ANJeL Kyoto and Tokyo Seminars in Japanese Law taught to students from various Australian and Japanese universities for over a decade in Japan each February, hosted by Ritsumeikan University. (Although not taught offshore next year due to the pandemic, ANJeL core and other universities will be offering Japanese Law courses onshore supplemented by resources like these.) Below under we list the 2020 Seminars’ topics and lecturers from over a dozen universities across Australia and Japan. They will be supplemented by other Japanese Law scholars in Australia (like ANJeL Advisor Prof Veronica Taylor, and UMelbourne / ANJeL Judges Program convenor A/Prof Stacey Steele), in Japan, Europe, North America and other parts of Asia – especially those with interests in Australia (like past ANJeL Visitors). We will also add a few interviews with renowned legal practitioners renowned for bilateral engagement, such as Akira Kawamura (former IBA President and USydney alumnus) and one of the past judicial officers seconded from Japan for year-long research studies (with prior approval of course from the Supreme Court of Japan). Those recordings will further broaden the potential audience, beyond academia. It is also expected that some recordings will be attractive and used for Japanese Studies courses, not just for law courses.

Potential interviewees:

(i) In a first stage, from mid-November until mid-December, the project team will schedule and conduct interviews (or otherwise invite one-way podcast recordings) focusing on the following topics and respective co-lecturers from the February 2020 Kyoto and Tokyo Seminars in Japanese Law, co-hosted by ANJeL (core institutions) and Ritsumeikan University Law School:

  1. Introduction to the Japanese Legal System

Prof. Kent Anderson (Australian National University) & Prof. Tetsuro Hirano (Ritsumeikan University, School of Law) [interviewed by A/Prof Heather Roberts]

2. Criminal Justice & Law

Prof. Makoto Ibusuki (Seijo Univ.) & Prof. Kent Anderson (ANU)

3. Politics and Constitutional Law

Prof. Giorgio Colombo (Nagoya University) & Prof. Akihiko Kimijima (Ritsumeikan University) [interviewed by A/Prof Heather Roberts and/or Melanie Trezise]

4. Civil Justice and Law

Prof. Yoko Tamura (University of Tsukuba, Law School) & Prof. Luke Nottage (The University of Sydney/ USyd)

5. Arbitration and ADR

Prof. Giorgio Colombo (Nagoya University) & Prof. Nottage (USyd)[interviewed by Nobu Teramura]

6. Working as International Attorneys in Japan:

Mr. Jiri Mestecky (Attorney at Law, Partner, Kitahama Partners) & Mr. Yoshihiro Obayashi (Partner, Yodoyabashi &Yamagami Legal Professional Corporation/ Ritsumeikan School of Law Graduate) Osaka [interviewed by Melanie Trezise]

7. Government and Law

Prof. Narufumi Kadomatsu (Kobe University) & Prof. Wolff (QUT)

8. Gender and Law

Prof. Kyoko Ishida (Waseda University) & Prof. Wolff (QUT)

9. Contracts, Consumers & Law

Prof. Kenji Saigusa (Waseda University) & Prof. Nottage (USyd)

10. Pop Culture & Law

Prof. Wolff (QUT) [interviewed by Melanie Trezise]

11. Introduction to the Japanese Economy and Corporate Governance

Prof. Souichirou Kozuka (Gakushuin Univ.) & Prof. Leon Wolff (Queensland University of Technology/QUT)

12. Labour Law

Prof. Takashi Araki (University of Tokyo) & Prof. Wolff (QUT)

13. Finance and Law

Mr. Akihiro Wani (Senior Counselor/ Morrison & Foerster) & Prof. Tetsuo Morishita (Sophia University) [interviewed by Melanie Trezise]

14. Tax Law

Mr. Justin Dabner [now retired as A/Prof @] (James Cook University) & [interviewed by] Mr. Micah Burch (USydney)

(ii) In a second stage, for recordings mostly probably over January 2021, the project team will also reach out and connect with co-organisers and past co-lecturers for some (joint or separate) recordings, thus making them feel still part of this group and more likely therefore to contribute to future Seminars or other collaborations with Australia. This cohort includes Profs Chihara Watanabe (Ritsumeikan), Noriko Kawawa (Doshisha), Tomohiro Yoshimasa (Kyoto University), Tatsuya Nakamura (Kokushikan University) and Michelle Tan (recently retired and now director of Seikyo).

Past ANJeL Visitors we may record include Profs Miho Aoi (Gakushuin), James Claxton (Rikkyo), Marc Dernauer (Chuo) and Towa Niimura (Seikei University – who also has observed the Kyoto and Tokyo Seminar classes). Among Japanese Law scholars further afield, in the USA we will approach some senior scholars in the US (Profs John Haley, Frank Upham, Daniel Foote and Mark Ramseyer) as well as some younger ones (Profs Annelise Riles, Mark West); and similarly in Europe (eg Profs Harald Baum, Dimitri Vanoverbeke and Beatrice Jazulot) as well as other parts of Asia (eg Chulalongkorn University Prof Sakda Thanitcul).  

Author: Luke Nottage

Prof Luke Nottage (BCA, LLB, PhD VUW, LLM LLD Kyoto) is founding co-director of the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL), Associate Director (Japan) of the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney (CAPLUS), and Professor of Comparative and Transnational Business Law at Sydney Law School. He specialises in international dispute resolution, foreign investment law, contract and consumer (product safety) law.