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.
Category: Australia-Japan Relations
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.]
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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.
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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.
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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$200 – with no GST chargeable! At least some of us will follow up with an informal (PAYG) dinner.
For more details and registration please visit: http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=39&eventid=5139
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Australia and Japan: A New Economic [and Legal!] Partnership in Asia
Emeritus Professor Peter Drysdale recently presented in Sydney a preview of his now-published consultancy report for Austrade, which urges (p3):
“a paradigm shift in thinking about Australia’s relationship with the Japanese economy. The Japanese market is no longer confined to Japan itself. It is a huge international market generated by the activities of Japanese business and investors, especially via production networks in Asia. It is a market enhanced by the economic cooperation programs of the Japanese government throughout the developing world, particularly in the Asian and Pacific region. And it is a market in which Japanese business now plays an increasingly important role from an Australian base in manufacturing, agriculture and services.”
The Australian Financial Review now confirms that Japan has led China and other Asian investors into Australia over the last year (“What Crisis? Asian Investors rush to our shores”, 24 September 2009). But many probably remain unaware of these facts highlighted by Drysdale’s report (pp 3-4):
“The stock of Japanese investment in Asia amounted to A$ 180 billion out of Japan’s global investment of A$ 772 billion at end-2008. The flow of export and import trade which Japanese business generates in Asia each year was US$ 690 billion in 2008. Procurements through Japanese corporate subsidiaries in Asia amount to A$ 1.2 trillion annually. In addition, Japan spent A$ 11 billion (901 billion yen) in Asia on Overseas Development Assistance programs and procurement through economic cooperation programs. Japanese business has now also established a platform for export to the region from Australia, with diversified investments across food, manufacturing as well as resources, that already delivers A$ 6 billion in Australian sales to Asian markets other than Japan. These are all large new elements in the economic relationship with Japan beyond the A$ 51 billion export trade and A$ 20 billion import trade that Australia already does each year with Japan itself.”
These pervasive economic ties are underpinned by very wide-ranging and stable relations between Australia and Japan at all sorts of levels: governmental, judicial, educational, working holidays, and so on. As pointed out in another recent report “Australia and Japan: Beyond the Mainstream”, by Manuel Panagiotopolous and Andrew Cornell for the Australia Japan Foundation, the GFC has led policy-makers as well as businesspeople to look again more favourably on relationships that combine lower risk with less return, compared to high risk/return ventures.
We can take advantage of these strong and still very profitable Australia-Japan bilateral relationships, as well as the investment and trading links each country (especially Japan) has developed in other parts of Asia particularly since the 1990s, by more actively joining Australian and Japanese partners for ventures throughout Asia. This spreads the risks typically associated with the possibility of higher returns, and also allows each partner to contribute goods or services in which that country has more of a comparative advantage. Thus, for example, Drysdale suggests (p25):
“partnership with Australian services firms in finance, legal services and engineering could be mutual productive. … In FTA talks with Japan the Rudd Government is trying to open the way for professional and financial services firms to set up in Japan, encouraging wider recognition of qualifications and the removal of barriers to obtaining licences in Japan”.
As an example of “legal and consultancy services”, Drysdale mentions that several Australian law firms have long experience in the Asian region, and gives the example of Mallesons Japan. But he concludes that “if we are serious about joining global supply chains and capturing service industry opportunities in Asia then Australian firms need to be there on the ground to capture the business”.
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Law, Public Policy and Economics in Japan and Australia: Reviewing Bilateral Relations and Commercial Regulation in 2009
This is the grand title of a modest Sydney Law School Research Paper (No 09/71) updating and editing another collection of my blog postings both here and on the East Asia Forum. Freely downloadable via http://ssrn.com/abstract=1446523, it is based mainly on developments from the end of 2008 through to mid-2009.
Many topics are important not only within Australia and Japan, but also potentially for bilateral relations (for example, as novel dimensions to the FTA or ‘Economic Partnership Agreement’ already under negotiation between these two countries). Several topics (for example, the state of economics as a discipline after the GFC, neo-communitarian perspectives on comparative law and society, the legacy of the post-War Occupation of Japan) also address more broadly how we should (re)conceptualise law, economics and public policy particularly in the Asia-Pacific context.
Australia, Social Justice and Labour Reform in Occupation Japan
This is the sub-title to a fascinating recent book by University of Wollongong CAPSTRAN Research Fellow, Dr Christine de Matos, Imposing Peace and Prosperity (Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2008, ISBN 1740971612 ix + 427 pp). This eminently readable work is based on her PhD dissertation submitted to the University of Western Sydney in 2003. But those readers (like myself) who do not specialise in history per se may like to fast-forward first to her “Concluding Thoughts” in Chapter 8, “The Context of Australian Policy Towards the Japanese Labour Movement” (pp 328-9):
The United States came to promote a capital-led economic recovery in postwar Japan, while the Chifley government [in Australia, 1945-9] favoured a labour-led one. These essential differences could never be reconciled in terms of Allied labour policy in Japan. A labour-led recovery was essential to the pragmatic Australian aims of security, trade and maintenance of ‘White Australia’. A labour-led recovery would negate the traditional fear held towards a ‘yellow’ nation, once economically and militarily powerful, yet a nation with low living standards and an exploited workforce deemed inimical to living standards and jobs in Australia and Australian regional trade ambitions. For the United States, the Japanese labour movement was too radical, too militant and too political – thus the free rein given to labour was, after 1947, tightly drawn back. For Australia, the Japanese labour movement was not radical enough, or sincere enough, or had developed roots deep enough to play its integral role in Australian policy – a role for which permission and approval was never sought. Japanese workers were, in the end, not trusted by a nation steeped in suspicion, fear and insecurity. The United States enacted a controlled and superficial revolution from above; Australia envisaged the conditions and structures from outside that would, over time, nurture a controlled but penetrating revolution from below. Time was what Australian policy demanded; time was what US policy was not willing to concede.
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