On behalf of the University of Sydney, please let me welcome you all to this international conference, on ‘Socio-legal norms in preventing and managing disasters in Japan: Asia-Pacific and interdisciplinary perspectives’, by acknowledging the many people and organizations that have made it possible. I thank especially our many speakers, session chairs and other participants here today – including Consul-General Kohara (who will soon add a few words to open the conference) and several others who will be joining us later (by Skype from Japan and the US, as well as the Federal Minister for Emergency Services and Adelaide University’s new Pro Vice-Chancellor (Int’l) Professor Kent Anderson, who will give closing speeches tomorrow).
I also gratefully acknowledge our main sponsor, the Japan Foundation Sydney, which last year requested applications for joint research events on this important topic; and the other participating institutions – the Law Faculty of Tohoku University (one of USydney’s longstanding partners in Japan) and various USydney-related organisations that have come together to provide matching funding: the Law School and its Centre for Asian and Pacific Law (CAPLUS), the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL, centred on the Law Schools at USydney, ANU and Bond University), the new China Studies Centre, the Department of Japanese Studies, and the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Int’l).
May I also single out our fine administrative support staff: Dale Nouwens (Law School Events Coordinator) and Melanie Trezise (ANJeL Executive Coordinator). I truly appreciate their help, especially as I will need to step outside this conference occasionally over the next few days. As the relevant Associate Dean, I also need to keep an eye on the Orientation Program for new International Students in the Law School, which will be taking place in parallel in the lecture theatre across the corridor.
Category: Australia-Japan Relations
4th ANJeL Australia-Japan Business Law Update seminar (Tokyo, Sat. 11 Feb.)
About the seminar:
This fourth ANJeL CLE Seminar in Tokyo, aimed especially at Australian practitioners in Japan, as well as Japanese practitioners interested in Australian law and the economy, introduces new Australian developments in labour law and consumer law, including dispute resolution aspects, comparing also some developments in Japanese law and practice. It will be followed by an informal networking opportunity.
To register and view the event flyer please click here.
Continue reading “4th ANJeL Australia-Japan Business Law Update seminar (Tokyo, Sat. 11 Feb.)”
ANJeL Anniversary Conference (1-2 March 2012): Abstracts (2) and Registration Webpage Now Live
A second set of presentation titles, abstracts and (links to) bios for the conference on “Socio-legal Norms in Preventing and Managing Disasters in Japan: Asia-Pacific and Interdisciplinary Perspectives” is now available below. Those of [1] Luke Nottage (Sydney Law School) and [2] Julius Weitzdoerfer (MPI Hamburg), further analysing Japan’s regulatory framework and responses to the “3-11” disasters from a socio-legal perspective, have already been uploaded on this blog here. Postings related to the presentation by Kent Anderson (ANU/Adelaide), on the demographics of the disasters and some subsequent surprising continuities, can be found on the (highly recommended) East Asia Forum blog.
The conference registration webpage and PDF flyer are also now available here. There are various discounts (eg half price for ‘early-birds’, ANJeL and AJS-NSW members, full-time academics and students; free for staff of the sponsoring/participating organisations) and the final session is gratis and open to the public. There are also links to the websites of the Japan Red Cross and Consulate-General of Japan, which are welcoming donations for the massive and ongoing disaster relief in East Japan. Please spread the word among your friends and colleagues!
Anniversary Conference, 1-2 March 2012: “Socio-legal Norms in Preventing and Managing Disasters in Japan: Asia-Pacific and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”
The “3-11 triple disasters” that afflicted Japan on 11 March 2011 have highlighted broader regulatory issues facing countries particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan’s FTA negotiation program. A few months after “3-11”, the Japan Foundation established a special grant program calling for collaborative research conferences on disaster prevention and management – seeking applications by end-September, with decisions to be reached by end-October and conferences to be concluded by March 2012. An application by a consortium led by the University of Sydney Law School was successful, allowing a major international conference to take place in the new Sydney Law School premises over Friday 1 March and Saturday 2 March 2012. Other sponsors of this event are the University’s Japanese Studies Department and the new China Studies Centre, the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney (CAPLUS), the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL), and the Law Faculty of Tohoku University (one of the University of Sydney’s longstanding partner institutions).
The conference will commemorate the first anniversary of the 3-11 disasters, and also represents ANJeL’s tenth international conference on diverse aspects of Japanese Law. It will examine regulatory issues from a variety of social science perspectives, focusing on Japan but comparing Australia (of course, especially in the wake of January’s devastating floods in Queensland), New Zealand (especially issues highlighted by the Christchurch earthquake), Indonesia (the Aceh tsunami), China and the USA (especially earthquakes and nuclear power issues).
Please “save the date”, and keep an eye on the ANJeL website and the Sydney Law School “events” website for forthcoming registration and other details.
Guest blog: “The Tokyo International Military Tribunal: A Reappraisal”
[Below is an overview of an intriguing book with this self-explanatory title, reviewed by my colleague specialising in public international law, A/Prof Ben Saul; and a former Research Assistant at our Sydney Centre for International Law, Naomi Hart. Their Review was published in [2010] Australian International Law Journal 295-9. The full PDF version, including footnote references, is downloadable here.
My own Review of this book co-authored by Professor Neil Boister (University of Canterbury) and Robert Cryer (University of Birmingham), is forthcoming in [2011] New Yearbook of International Law. That Review is written with my father, Richard Nottage, who in the 1960s undertook post-graduate research into pre-WW2 Sino-Japanese political and economic history using primarily the full sets of Tokyo War Crimes Trial documentation donated to the University of Canterbury (by the New Zealand Judge on the tribunal) and to Oxford University. A shorter Review written by Richard alone, published in (November-December 2010) New Zealand International Review 27-28, is already downloadable here.]
Continue reading “Guest blog: “The Tokyo International Military Tribunal: A Reappraisal””
WikiLeaks and “A Whale of A Story”
[This is based on research for the project, ‘Fostering a Common Culture in Cross-Border Dispute Resolution: Australia, Japan and the Asia-Pacific‘, supported by the Commonwealth through the Australia-Japan Foundation which is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. An edited version was published on Australia Day by the East Asia Forum blog.]
My Sydney Law School colleague Dr Tim Stephens convincingly criticises the Sydney Morning Herald and others recently for over-sensationalising Australia’s alleged “Secret Dealing on Whale Hunts”, in reporting drawing on documents released by WikiLeaks. He also analyses reports indicating some opposition with the Australian government about the proceedings it has now initiated against Japan before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). A lively debate has emerged on the ABC’s website in response to Dr Stephens’ article entitled “A Whale of a Story”, with many more excellent points made on both sides of the whaling debate. Here is my own two yen’s worth.
New Legislative Agendas, Legal Professionals and Dispute Resolution in Australia and Japan: 2009-2010
This is the title of my third paper in a series of edited and updated selections of my postings to the ‘East Asia Forum’ blog (indicated with a double asterisk in the Table of Contents below) and this partly-overlapping ‘Japanese Law and the Asia-Pacific’ blog. They mainly cover developments from mid-2009 through to mid-2010, with a focus on law and policy in Australia and Japan in a wider regional and sometimes global context. The paper is freely downloadable here.
Half of the postings edited for the paper introduce some new policy and legislative agendas proclaimed by the then Prime Ministers of Australia (Kevin Rudd, in late July 2009) and Japan (Yukio Hatoyama, through the Democratic Party of Japan [DPJ] which he led to a remarkable general election victory in late August 2009). Both had resigned by mid-2010, indicating some of the difficulties involved in implementing ambitious reforms in both countries. All the more so, perhaps, if innovative measures are to be added to both countries’ Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in order to foster more sustainable socio-economic development in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
The remaining postings end by introducing Australia’s regime for international (and domestic) commercial arbitration enacted in mid-2010, centred on a United Nations Model Law – like Japan’s Arbitration Act of 2003. However it sets these enactments in broader context by focusing on legal professionals – lawyers, judges and specialists in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) – as well as aspects of the legal education systems in both countries. Those systems will need to gel better as well for both Australia and Japan to achieve the ‘cultural reform’ needed to generate sustainable critical mass in commercial (and investor-state) arbitration activity.
International Commercial Arbitration Reform in Australia, Japan and Beyond
Australia’s long-awaited International Arbitration Amendment Act 2010 (Cth) received Royal Assent on 6 July, after the Senate agreed on 17 June to the Bill introduced to the House of Representatives on 25 November 2009 as revised by the federal Government itself on 17 March 2010. The International Arbitration Act 1974, as thereby amended (‘amended IAA’, at http://www.comlaw.gov.au), is set in broader context by the first book devoted to this important field of dispute resolution (‘DR’) law and practice: Luke Nottage and Richard Garnett (eds) International Arbitration in Australia (Federation Press, Sydney, forthcoming October 2010: see Prelims PDF downloadable here).
This eleven-chapter work adds a Preface from NSW Chief Justice Spigelman, a powerful proponent of arbitration and broader access to justice as well as judicial exchange with Japan. It is partly dedicated to Professor Yasuhei Taniguchi, one of my inspiring former teachers at Kyoto University in the early 1990s and a Distinguished Visitor to Sydney Law School over July-August 2009. He is also renowned as a practitioner of international commercial arbitration (ICA), having served for example as arbitrator in an ICC arbitration in Melbourne, as well as a former Judge on the WTO Appellate Body.
The amended IAA brings new promise for ICA in Australia, and may offer lessons for countries like Japan. But Australia can also learn from Japan, especially the thorough way in which it goes about legislative reform.
Continue reading “International Commercial Arbitration Reform in Australia, Japan and Beyond”
Guest Blog: Japan’s Quest for a Leadership Role in Asia
On 11 March, the Japan Foundation hosted a lecture at Blake Dawson’s offices in Sydney entitled ‘Japan at a Foreign Policy Crossroads: New Direction or More of the Same?’ by Kyoko Hatakeyama, a former official in Japan’s Foreign Ministry who recently completed her doctorate under the supervision of Professor Craig Freedman at Macquarie University. She discussed the possible changes in Japanese foreign policy under the new government led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and the lecture included the launch in Australia of ‘Snow on the Pine: Japan’s Quest for a Leadership Role in Asia’, a book based on her thesis and co-authored with Dr Freedman. Here are some notes subsequently provided by Dr Hatakeyama, setting a broader context for many postings and comments on this Blog.
Continue reading “Guest Blog: Japan’s Quest for a Leadership Role in Asia”
2nd ANJeL Australia-Japan Business Law Update CLE Seminar: 13/02/10 in Tokyo
Happy New Year of the Tiger!
Registrations are now open for the 2nd ANJeL Australia Japan Business Law Update seminar: Saturday 13 February 2010 2-5.30pm at the Kasumigaseki building of Ernst & Young in Tokyo (http://shinnihon.vo.llnwd.net/o25/image/aboutus/eytax_access_mapE.gif).
Learn about post-GFC financial markets reg and (yes) the amended Australia-Japan double tax treaty. And even get 3 MCLD/PLD credits. Just A$200 – with no GST chargeable! At least some of us will follow up with an informal (PAYG) dinner.
For more details and registration please visit: http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=39&eventid=5139
Continue reading “2nd ANJeL Australia-Japan Business Law Update CLE Seminar: 13/02/10 in Tokyo”