Category: Japanese Law

Arbitration and Sports Law (Baseball) Dispute Resolution in Australia and Japan

As part of the Japanaroo suite of events, ANJeL is delighted to coordinate at Sydney Law School the two free public seminars below, both including a strong comparative focus on Japan and Australia, and involving a former Chief Justice of Victoria. One on Thursday 21 September compares arbitration’s historical trajectory (hybrid-format seminar, including two ANJeL program convenors based abroad – register via https://law-events.sydney.edu.au/events/intarbitrationaujp). The second on Friday 22 September compares sports law and dispute resolution (generally and with baseball as a major case study; in-person only, chaired by another ANJeL convenor Micah Burch – register via https://law-events.sydney.edu.au/events/globalsports-767).

1. Comparative History of International Arbitration: Australia, Japan and Beyond

This hybrid-format webinar compares the historical trajectory of international arbitration law and practice in Australia and Japan in regional and global contexts. An aim is to explore the evolving images and contours of arbitration and scope for cross-border collaboration in promoting this popular but sometimes contested form of dispute resolution.

Speakers

Commentator: Prof Luke Nottage (University of Sydney)(Drawing on the concluding chapter in his 2021 book: https://japaneselaw.sydney.edu.au/2020/08/book-in-press-with-elgar/ and his Encyclopedia entry on ACICA (with Prof Richard Garnett) at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4431276 )

Thursday 21 September

Time: 4-5.30pm

Location: The University of Sydney, Common Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown

Cost: Free, but registration is essential. Please select your attendance type during registration.

CPD points: 1.5 points

This event is being held an online and in-person at Sydney Law School. Please indicate your viewing preference when registering.

This event is proudly co-presented by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law, the Resolution Institute and the Australian Network for Japanese Law at the University of Sydney Law School.

2. 2nd Annual Global Sports Law Symposium: Dispute Resolution

In-person event

This symposium brings together luminary experts and practitioners in sports law to discuss dispute resolution in the world of sports (it follows on from ANJeL’s seminar on international arbitration). The symposium’s first panel will feature two giants of the Australian sports law world reflecting on their careers in jurisprudence and sports administration resolving disputes in the sports area. The second panel will be a case study focusing on dispute resolution in baseball with two experts on both Japanese and Australian baseball.

About the Speakers

A. Dispute Resolution in Sports: Expert Reflections

Professor Deborah Healey (University of New South Wales)

Deborah Healey is the Director of the Herbert Smith Freehills China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre and the Editor of the Sports Law Journal. She has more than 30 years of experience serving on the boards of major sports governance organizations and serves on the National Sports Tribunal.

Professor the Hon Marilyn Warren AC KC (Monash University)

Marilyn Warren is a Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow of Monash University and is the former Chief Justice of Victoria. She practices as a commercial arbitrator and teaches law as a Professor at Monash’s Law Faculty.

B. Dispute Resolution in Sports: Baseball Case Study

Mr. Mark Marino (CEO, Baseball NSW)

Mark Marino has been the CEO of Baseball NSW since 2014 and is an Executive Committee Member of the Australian Baseball Players Alumni Association. Mark played collegiate and professional baseball in the United States and was the CEO of the Sydney Blue Sox 2014-2018.

Dr. Matt Nichol (Lecturer, Central Queensland University, (Melbourne))

Matt Nichol is a lecturer and sports law academic at the School of Business and Law at Central Queensland University and a board member of Baseball Victoria. His research uses approaches to labour law and regulatory theory to understand the regulation of labour in professional team sports.

Moderator: Mr. Micah Burch, Senior Lecturer, Sydney Law School.

Hosts: Sydney Law School, Australian Network for Japanese Law, Australia New Zealand Sports Law Association

Date: Friday, 22 September 2023

Time: 4.00-5.30pm

Location: Common Room, Level 4, New Law Building (F10), The University of Sydney

Please follow directional signage on arrival.

CPD Points: 1.5

This event is proudly co-presented by The University of Sydney Law School, the Australian Network for Japanese Law and the Australia New Zealand Sports Law Association.

Vote of thanks for Chief Justice Bell’s launch of “Comparing Online Legal Education” (& Foreword by James Douglas KC)

[From book launch on 3 August 2023]

I am very grateful for NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell [pictured, above on left] for taking time from his busy schedule to launch this book [video-recording here or via the Sydney Law School podcasts on Youtube]. Perhaps I should have asked instead for such a favour for my next volume just into press, on Corruption and Asian Investment Arbitration, given His Honour’s longstanding shared interest in cross-border dispute resolution. But the Chief Justice also was a valued lecturer for Sydney Law School over many years, and I was struck by the remarks made about online legal education in another book launch following the annual Winterton lecture in the Banco Court a few months ago. Thank you very much for sharing some further ideas and kind words, reminding us of the history of technological developments in the research and teaching of law over our lifetimes, in the context of this volume.

I also acknowledge the Foreword [reproduced below] kindly contributed by former Queensland Supreme Court Justice James Douglas, here today [pictured, 2nd from right] and a longstanding elected member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. I also appreciate that Academy and then Secretary-General Prof Diego Fernández Arroyo for inviting me in early 2020 to become the General Reporter comparing developments world-wide related to online legal education. That became of course a very hot topic due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which unfortunately meant not all nominated national reporters ended up producing chapters for this book. But I think it nonetheless achieved a fairly representative mix of jurisdictions to draw wider comparative conclusions – jurisdictions from common law, civil law and mixed traditions, more or less democratic states, large and small states, developed and developing economies.

I thank all the contributors to this book, especially my co-editor Seijo University Prof Makoto Ibusuki, ANJeL-in-Japan program convenor and frequent visitor to Australia (and many parts of the world). I particularly valued some early zoom discussions over 2020, comparing different challenges and reactions in Australia and Japan. We and this book also benefited from an excellent chapter co-authored by ANJeL Advisor and Newcastle DVC, Prof Kent Anderson here tonight, comparing different “gatekeepers” across jurisdictions that regulate entry to the legal profession: lawyers, governments, universities and the market. The book’s summary general report plus the jurisdictional reports consider how each model, along with other factors such as ICT infrastructure and funding for universities as well as the extent of COVID-19 impact, can influence the trajectories of in-person and then online legal education.

I thank also Rebecca Moffat and the very professional team at Intersentia, which has become the publisher for the book series from the Academy’s four-yearly major comparative law congresses. (I only hope they bring down the price for the e-book version.) I am especially grateful to Intersentia and the Academy for adapting for the book cover an abstract artwork provided by my daughter Erica Kobayashi Nottage of Enso Circulation, finishing off at the National Art School this year, and for the rest of my immediate family for joining us for the book launch.

For hosting tonight, I thank Dean Simon Bronitt [pictured in photo above, right] and Sydney Law School (including its Centre for Asian and Pacific Law, the cross-institutional Australian Network for Japanese Law, and Carla and Ashleigh from our terrific Events Team). Further editorial and research assistance for the book was kindly provided through the University of Wollongong’s Transnational Law and Policy Centre, where I enjoy an honorary affiliation. I am also glad for the support of Assoc Prof Markus Wagner, leading that Centre, and his Dean Trish Mundy kindly co-authored an insightful chapter on online legal education in Australia.

Thank you again for the insightful remarks on launching this book, Chief Justice, and for all my colleagues, family, friends and others who attended to support this event.

***

Book’s Foreword, by the Hon James Douglas KC:

A long time ago I experienced the mixed joys of both undergraduate and postgraduate law lectures and tutorials delivered directly in the classroom among fellow students. In my final undergraduate year in 1973, however, I studied part-time entirely remotely by reading lecture notes with references to the relevant texts and cases. Luckily, I had access to an excellent law library and was the associate of a judge in a final appellate court where there were other such judges with associates who were recent graduates. I could bounce ideas off them and learn from the cases argued before the court. I hate to think what that experience of remote learning would have been like had I not had that environment around me. I admire greatly those lawyers who have successfully educated themselves solely through distance or online education. 

I recognise the advantages that modern technology can provide to remote learning not only through video-conferencing of lectures and tutorials but by direct access to relevant primary materials online. That early experience, however, has biased me in favour of live teaching in a class full of students actually present. As the authors recognise in their introduction, even interactive video-conferencing makes it more difficult for remote students ‘to engage in classroom discussions … where picking up on nuances can be harder than in physical interactions, even for native speakers’. Common experience of video-conferencing outside the academic environment backs up those conclusions. 

There is so much to be learned also in informal discussion with lecturers and other students and from an environment where the social interaction and physical facilities are focused on what you are studying. As the authors say about the experience of online education in Macao, ‘law is rooted in human interactions, benefiting not only from direct student–teacher contact but also from student learning among peers, through classroom teaching but also other personal contacts on campus’. This personal contact is recognised as a continuing advantage particularly in aspects of courses where students need to learn practical or ‘soft’ skills.

The period leading up to the International Academy of Comparative Law’s 2022 Congress in Paraguay coincided with the spread of the COVID-19 virus and the curtailment of normal legal education in very many jurisdictions. So the decision to examine the topic of online legal education at the Congress proved to be very ‘timely’, as Professors Nottage and Ibusuki say in their General Report. Suddenly online legal education had become frighteningly necessary and common. It can also provide access to courses otherwise practically too expensive or unavailable to less privileged students. What, therefore, may be the consequences of greater use of online legal education for the future of the profession and the teaching of law around the world?

This useful volume examines those issues relevant to online legal education in 13 jurisdictions representative of the major common law and civilian traditions as well as some hybrid jurisdictions. It makes some tentative predictions for the future of such education. The examples also carry the advantage of having been drawn from countries with widely varying economies, unequal access to technology for online teaching and differing traditions in the teaching of law. 

The authors link legal education to the legal profession and main legal traditions of each jurisdiction covered, and include pre- and post-admission education for law graduates. The focus is mostly on university-level legal education but practical professional training in some jurisdictions is also addressed. Online education for such practical training can be more effective than may be the case for young undergraduates. It is also notable that the topic shows the typical tensions between continuity and change often found in comparative studies. 

Some of the main general conclusions reached are that developments in online legal education in the 13 jurisdictions examined should be influenced by the nature of the jurisdiction’s legal tradition and legal profession, its level of public funding for universities, its level of economic development, including its infrastructure for information and communications technology, and the particular impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The work as a whole will be especially useful for those considering how to deploy online legal education in a particular jurisdiction, using that analysis, with a view to setting up a properly nuanced regime for that style of education for that jurisdiction. 

Those charged with these significant responsibilities in jurisdictions and universities around the world will derive great benefit from studying the insights contained in this volume. 

History of International Arbitration in Japan

[This is the Introduction to a draft chapter written with ANJeL-in-ASEAN Convenor Asst Prof Nobumichi Teramura, for a book being edited by Lars Markert et al on International Arbitration in Japan]

Arbitration has had quite a long modern history in Japan, including a fascinating inter-state dispute that arose in 1872 (Part 2 below). The first arbitration legislation, modelled on German law, was enacted in 1890 and survived for over a century (Part 3).

In 1961, Japan also became one of the first states in Asia, indeed world-wide, to ratify the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (NYC). A few years after the 1985 release of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (ML), a group comprising mostly academics proposed new legislation based on that emerging global standard. However, the concept was only enacted 15 years later as the Arbitration Act (Law No 138 of 2003),[1] as part of the government’s broader package of reforms into justice system reforms. Instead, in 1996, legislation was amended to allow “fly-in” foreign lawyers (in addition to “foreign law solicitors” registered in Japan under legislation since 1986) to represent clients in international arbitrations in Japan. Their scope of permitted practice was somewhat expanded in 2021, as part of the government’s initiatives from 2018 to have Japan catch up with larger regional hubs for international arbitration. As another part of that program, the first amendments to the Arbitration Act were approved in 2023 (Part 4).

Despite this rather slow development of cutting-edge legislation for international arbitration in Japan, the courts have been comparatively consistent in rendering pro-arbitration decisions complying with the NYC and ML as international instruments (Part 5). Japan’s two main arbitration institutions, The Tokyo Maritime Arbitration Commission (TOMAC, established in 1926) and the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (JCAA, established in 1953), have also helped keep arbitration practices updated by periodically revising their Arbitration Rules. The government’s push since 2017 to promote Japan more actively as a seat has led to further new Rules as well as new arbitral institutions, including for sports and intellectual property disputes (Part 6).

Japan has also become a comparatively active proponent of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) arbitration provisions in international investment agreements, although again after a slow start. Japan has seen few outbound and even fewer inbound ISDS arbitration claims. However, this means that arbitration generally may not attract as many negative associations with the general public as in other states experiencing more and/or high-profile ISDS arbitration claims from foreign investors (Part 7).

Despite such positive developments, arbitration has not yet captured the imagination in Japan. The general public remained quite unfamiliar with it, although awareness nowadays may be improving. Indeed, one colloquial understanding or definition of arbitration (chusai) was closer to mediation (chotei), even though the latter does not involve imposition of a binding decision by the agreed third-party neutral.[2] This confusion may have persisted from the Tokugawa era (1603-1867),[3] when notions of judiciable rights were comparatively weak and mediation was actively practiced to resolve civil disputes.[4]

As for awareness among Japanese firms in the modern era, the larger ones have long been quite familiar with the advantages of including arbitration clauses especially in maritime matters and other cross-border commercial contexts. Accordingly, some have got involved in some arbitrations and even some high-profile related court proceedings particularly abroad. In addition, sustained efforts by arbitral institutions and business associations since World War II have made smaller and medium sized enterprises more likely to include arbitration clauses in their own growing cross-border trade and then investment contracts, although many probably remain quite unfamiliar with arbitration. Furthermore, as a whole, Japanese firms have been more willing to agree to arbitration clauses specifying a seat outside Japan. In addition, they have appeared more reluctant actually to proceed with arbitration claims even under such clauses, or locally when the seat is agreed to be in Japan, compared to companies from other states in Asia and beyond.[5]

The result has been that Japan’s major arbitration institutions have not yet seen the significant growth in international case filings evident in several states in the region. Arbitration is also still used infrequently to resolve domestic commercial disputes. As with Japan’s still comparatively low per capita civil litigation rate, the reasons may be related to (general, organisational or legal) culture or institutional barriers (including comparatively few lawyers, experts, arbitrators and institutions pro-actively specialising in the field, at least until recently). These questions, and therefore the prospects for expanding arbitration services in Japan, are explored further in the Conclusions (Part 7).

[1] For a semi-official translation, see Japan Ministry of Justice, ‘Arbitration Act (Act No. 138 of 2003)’ (Japanese Law Translation) https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/2784 accessed 14 April 2023.

[2] Tatsuya Nakamura, Chusaiho Gaisetsu [Outline of Arbitration Law] (Seibundo Shinkosha 2022) 1.

[3] Yoshihisa Hayakawa, ‘Nihon ni okeru Chusai no Rekishiteki Isou [Historical Phases of Arbitration in Japan]’ (2015) 87 Horitsu Jiho 19, 19-20.

[4] Nonetheless, some litigants did actively press their rights even during this pre-modern era, when Japan largely closed itself off from the wider world: see e.g., Herman Ooms, Tokugawa Village Practice: Class, Status, Power, Law (University of California Press 1996).

[5] Compare generally [[X-ref to Chapter 3 (Japan as seat) in this volume].

“Crisis as an Opportunity for Development of Japanese Law”

Following on the inaugural ANJeL-in-Europe symposium organised by Prof Giorgio Colombo for UPavia in late 2019, Dr Wered Ben-Sade and other attendees or associates are participating online in this law-related session on the first day of the Sixth Bi-Annual International Conference of the Israeli Association for Japanese Studies (15-17 November 2022).

Chair: Wered Ben-Sade Bar-Ilan University, Israel

CRISIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESE LAW
Chair: Wered Ben-Sade
Crises create new opportunities for development, particularly when traditional perceptions and customs (or habits) are questioned and reexamined. Similarly as “Necessity is the mother of invention” (Plato), crises push us out of our comfort zone while simultaneously lowering the risks of change, thus motivating us to operate differently in order to solve them or improve our response. This is true both at the micro, personal level, and at the macro level of society. Understanding this mechanism at the macro level can facilitate us when we encounter a personal crisis and inspire us to search for the opportunity that is encapsulated within.
Five presentations will examine how crises serve as an opportunity for the development of Japanese law, both in the past (from the second half of the 19th century) and now. Some of the most debated challenges that Japan and the world are currently facing, such as inclusiveness of women, legal education, Covid19 impact and sustainability (in the context of corporate governance), will be discussed.

Béatrice Jaluzot Lyon Institute for Political Sciences & Lyon Institute for East Asian Studies
Crisis as an opportunity for development from a historical perspective: The choice of a positivist legal system following the signature of the Unequal Treaties
In the second half of the 19th century, Japan experienced the collapse of a thousand-year-old culture based on the Chinese model and the emergence of a society inspired by Western models. The disappearance of the old regime, caused by the imperialist movements of the time, gave way to a country that was profoundly renewed in all its fundamental structures. Among them, the country’s legal system was one of the essential novelties and one of the main achievements of the new leaders. They were thus able to set up institutions that are still largely those of today. The aim is to present how this legal system is the result of this brutal overthrow of the regime, but also to understand how the accelerated transition from which it emerged took place. This rupture gave rise to the powerful and efficient structures we know today.

Makoto Messersmith University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
Insights on the possibility of inclusiveness of women in law studies of Japan
When we look at the status quo and history of female law professors in the U.S. and Japan, it shows that unlike the U.S., Japan has not experienced great improvement regarding inclusiveness of women into law studies, yet. Although it seems that Japan has made some efforts to encourage more women to enter the field of law, women in law studies are still facing unique challenges. For instance, in many universities, female law professors are still less than 20%. In my talk, I will explore their challenges and discuss how we can encourage more women to be included in law studies.

Luke Nottage University of Sydney, Australia and Ken’ichi Yoneda, Kagoshima University, Japan
Introducing ICT into Japanese Legal Education:
The Postgraduate Law School Movement and Covid-19 as Cornerstones
This report explains the evolution of online legal education in Japan, particularly in its universities. Three phases can be discerned: before and after the introduction from 2004 of a new postgraduate Law School system to improve and expand core legal professionals, as part of a wider justice system reform program, and a more dramatic expansion prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. The Law School reforms had trickled down somewhat to undergraduate legal education, building on and linking to wider nationwide and university-sector initiatives in Information and Communications Technology. This fortunately positioned Japanese legal education quite well for pandemic-related challenges, although the transitions have not been easy.


Ying Hsin Tsai College of Law, National Taiwan University
The Development of Shareholder Activism following the COVID-19 Pandemic
The development of shareholder activism in Japan, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, creates new opportunities. The Japanese company law designs assorted ways by which shareholders can participate in shareholders’ meeting, even if they cannot attend in person (e.g. proxy, written voting and electronic voting). Due to the pandemic, the shareholders’ meeting could not be held in-person, and instead these other ways were gradually put to use. In this presentation I will discuss the practical merits and legal drawbacks surrounding these ways. The overall picture that emerges is that while providing a variety of ways for shareholders to participate in the shareholders’ meeting itself can certainly enhance the practice of shareholder activism, how to design these ways in a manner which overcomes the legal issues remains a challenge.


Kozuka Soichiro Faculty of Law, Gakushuin University, Japan
Introducing Sustainability into the Japanese Corporate Governance
Japan’s corporate governance practice is making rapid developments towards engaging with sustainability. Japan has already the largest number of companies in the world, which have announced support for the TCFD (Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) framework. The development towards sustainability will probably continue, induced by the external global crisis of the need for sustainability, and by the internal pressure of the institutional investors. In this presentation I will evaluate the current and expected developments. The Japanese nuances in both regulation and practice of corporate governance will also be discussed.

Guest Blog: ‘Exporting Japanese Legal Ideas to the Mekong Subregion of ASEAN’

Written by: Asst Prof Nobumichi Teramura (for MPI Hamburg Festchrift conference, 1-2 September 2022) [for the full paper, not just Part I below, you may try checking his webpages or contacting him]

[Abstract] Japan has long been a successful importer of western legal systems. The country has also exported its law to the rest of Asia for many years. Japan’s national ODA agency – the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) – has been offering legal technical assistance projects since the 1990s. These initiatives have impacted the development of legal systems in Central and Southeast Asian countries. In particular, the outcome of the projects in the countries along the Mekong River is allegedly outstanding in terms of their comprehensive influence on the private laws of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The projects have arguably helped these host countries establish and reform a significant number of private law frameworks. Nevertheless, the extensive work by Japanese legal experts has been struggling with a low profile and a lack of international recognition, most likely due to a lag in anglophone scholarship that delivers a sufficiently detailed examination of the current private laws of those host countries and their operation in practice. This paper intends to address the gap by providing a critical (albeit preliminary and succinct) evaluation of how Japan’s legal technical assistance has led Japanese legal ideas to form part of the legal pluralism in the Mekong Subregion of ASEAN. It also encourages Japanese and local law experts to undertake further actions to re-assess the influence of Japanese law in these countries.

Part I. Introduction: Exporting Japanese Law to the Rest of Asia

Japan has long been perceived as a successful example of legal transplantation based on western models such as the legal systems of Germany, France and the US.[1] However, Japanese law has rarely treated as a source of legal ideas that are applicable outside Japan.[2] When it comes to Japan as a source of legal influence, commentators tend to focus on the country’s role in disseminating a modern German-style legal system to its neighbouring countries, but not on how Japanese law itself has influenced legal thinking in those countries.[3] Moreover, little attention is paid to how these countries are inspired by specific aspects of Japan’s success in importing western legal concepts because commentators are inclined to attribute the success to the specific institutions, culture and environment of Japan, perceiving Japan’s experience as inapplicable to other countries.[4] Those commentators writing in English appear to confine Japanese law and its legal institutions to Japan’s domestic domain.

However, Japanese law has extended its reach to Southeast Asia, as pointed out by several scholars in the last few decades. For instance, Tamura refers to Dr Tokichi Masao’s significant contribution to the codification of modern civil laws in Thailand during his tenure as the General Legal Adviser to the Kingdom of Siam in the early 20th century.[5] Tamura also reminds us that Thai commissioners adopted the (old) Japanese Civil Code as the foundation for their reception of the German Civil Code into the 1925 Revised Civil and Commercial Code of the Kingdom of Siam.[6] Moreover, Taylor highlights the importance of reviewing Japan’s legal technical assistance since the 1990s in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and beyond, suggesting that it reveals ‘ongoing tension between a western/globalized vision of rule-of-law assistance and the political imperatives at the national/local level’.[7] Along with Taylor’s thesis, this paper advocates for the need to examine the impact of Japanese positive law through the technical assistance in a recent hotspot for the global economy and comparative legal studies – the Mekong Subregion of ASEAN.[8]

These days, countries along the Mekong River, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, have been gaining new economic prominence and increased global attention because of geopolitical tensions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the US-China trade war.[9] Many multinationals have been relocating their factories from China to those countries in the Mekong Subregion for cost reduction and risk aversion,[10] being attracted to the competitive labour costs, liberal economic policies, trade openness, social stability and growth potential of those countries.[11] Those foreign investors and experts working on the field of international business are so interested in the legal environments of the host states that much has been written about the legal and judicial systems of the countries along the Mekong River.[12]

Japan’s national ODA agency, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA),[13] has since the 1990s been committing to the modernisation of law in the Mekong Subregion (and other countries) through its legal technical assistance projects.[14] Especially, Japanese legal advice provided through the assistance projects have heavily influenced the private laws of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, according to Japanese commentators[15] and mainstream media.[16] Nevertheless, we can rarely find corresponding observations or relevant discussions in anglophone scholarships or official documents issued by the governments of English speaking countries.[17] Thus, this paper critically and succinctly evaluates how Japanese legal ideas have shaped part of the legal pluralism in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, calling for further research to assess the influence of Japanese private law in these jurisdictions. It also discusses whether and how such research may help Japanese legal studies and local legal practice overcome challenges they have faced.

* Assistant Professor of ASEAN and Asia-Wide Integration, Universiti Brunei Darussalam; Affiliate, Centre for Asian and Pacific Law in the University of Sydney (CAPLUS); ANJeL-in-ASEAN Convenor, Australian Network for Japanese Law. The author acknowledges […]. Note that this paper is based on the following articles written by this author: Nobumichi Teramura, ‘Japan as a Source of Legal Ideas: A View from the Mekong Subregion of ASEAN’ (2021) 13 New Voices in Japanese Studies 19; and Nobumichi Teramura, ‘JICA and Regional Soft Power: Japan’s Legal and Judicial Development Project in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos since 1996’ (2022) IAS Working Paper Series <https://ias.ubd.edu.bn/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/working_paper_series_69.pdf> .

[1] Michele Graziadei, ‘Comparative Law, Transplants, and Receptions’ in Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann (eds), Comparative Law, Transplants, and Receptions (Oxford University Press 2019) 449; Mathias Siems, ‘The Power of Comparative Law: What Types of Units Can Comparative Law Compare’ (2019) 67 American Journal of Comparative Law 861, 865.

[2] Veronica Taylor, ‘Spectres of Comparison: Japanese Law through Multiple Lenses’ (2001) 6 Journal of Japanese Law 11.

[3] Chen Lei, ‘Contextualising Legal Transplant: China and Hong Kong’ in Pier Giuseppe Monateri (ed), Methods of Comparative Law (Edward Elgar Publishing 2012); Uwe Kischel, Comparative Law (Oxford University Press 2019) 55, 689, 699, 728–35; Graziadei, ‘Comparative Law, Transplants, and Receptions’ 450.

[4] Stephen Givens, ‘The Vagaries of Vagueness: An Essay on “Cultural” vs. “Institutional” Approaches to Japanese Law’ (2013) 22 Michigan State International Law Review 839; Giorgio Fabio Colombo, ‘Japan as a Victim of Comparative Law’ (2014) 22 Michigan State International Law Review 731.

[5] Shiori Tamura, ‘The Role of the Japanese Civil Code in the Codification in the Kingdom of Siam’ in Yuka Kaneko (ed), Civil Law Reforms in Post-Colonial Asia: Beyond Western Capitalism (Springer 2019) 54-55.

[6] Ibid 57ff.

[7] Veronica L Taylor, ‘Rule-of-law Assistance Discourse and Practice: Japanese Inflections’ in Amanda Perry Kessaris (ed), Law in the Pursuit of Development Principles into Practice? (Routledge-Cavendish 2009) 164.

[8] The Mekong Subregion consists of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand: Shawn Ho and Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit, ‘Can ASEAN Play a Greater Role in the Mekong Subregion?’, (The Diplomat, 20 January 2019) <https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/can-asean-play-a-greater-role-in-the-mekong-subregion/>.

[9] Nobumichi Teramura, Shahla F Ali and Anselmo Reyes, ‘Expanding Asia-Pacific Frontiers for International Dispute Resolution: Conclusions and Recommendations’ in Luke Nottage and others (eds), New Frontiers in Asia-Pacific International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution (Wolters Kluwer 2021) 356.

[10] John Boudreau and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen, ‘Rural Vietnam Booms With Jobs From Apple-Led Move in Supply Chains’, (Bloomberg, 26 October 2020) <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2020-10-26/supply-chains-latest-apple-shift-means-boom-in-rural-vietnam>; John Reed, ‘Vietnam Prepares for Supply Chain Shift from China’, (Financial Times, 28 December 2020) <https://www.ft.com/content/e855b706-e431-4fc5-9b0a-05d93ba1bcbe>

[11] See, eg, Swiss Re Institute, ‘De-risking Global Supply Chains: Rebalancing to Strengthen Resilience’ (2020) <https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/sigma-research/sigma-2020-06.html> ; OECD, ‘Trends in Foreign Investment and Trade in Lao PDR’ in OECD (ed), OECD Investment Policy Reviews: Lao PDR (OECD Publishing 2017).

[12] See generally The MLS Academic Research Service, ‘Southeast Asian Region Countries’ Law’ (Melbourne Law School, 2022)  <https://unimelb.libguides.com/asianlaw> accessed 29 June 2022.

[13] JICA is an independent administrative institution under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) of Japan.

[14] Luke Nottage, ‘The Development of Comparative Law in Japan’ in Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (2nd edn, Oxford University Press 2019) 204-207; Zentaro Kitagawa, ‘Development of Comparative Law in East Asia’ in Mathias Reimann and Reinhard Zimmermann (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (Oxford University Press 2006) 254-256; MOJ, ‘Legal Technical Assistance Activities by the International Cooperation Department ~Contributing to the World Is Japan’s Strength!~’ (n.d.)  <https://www.moj.go.jp/EN/housouken/houso_lta_lta.html> accessed 29 June 2022.

[15] Yuka Kaneko, ‘Japan’s Civil Code Drafting Support for Socialist Reform Countries: Diversity of Normative Choice’ in Yuka Kaneko (ed), Civil Law Reforms in Post-Colonial Asia: Beyond Western Capitalism (Springer 2019) 155.

[16] Shuichiro Sese, ‘Japan’s Judicial Diplomacy at Crossroads as Laos Enacts Civil Code’, (Nikkei Asia, 21 May 2020) <https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Japan-s-judicial-diplomacy-at-crossroads-as-Laos-enacts-civil-code> (noting that ‘Laos became the third country in Southeast Asia, after Vietnam and Cambodia, to introduce a civil code with Japanese support’).

[17] See Section 4 below.

Japan’s Influence in Comparative Law: An Australian Perspective

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg is hosting a Festschrift conference for longstanding ANJeL advisor and personal friend, Prof Harald Baum, over 1-2 September 2022 on the theme of “Comparing and Transferring Law and Legal Expertise: The Role of Japan”. My presentation and essay honouring Prof Harald Baum begins by locating Australia’s burgeoning Japanese law engagement since the 1980s amidst multiple “worlds” or genres of Japanese legal studies worldwide, and the ambivalence of hitching Japanese legal studies to the wider rising star of “Asian law” engagement (Part I [reproduced below]). It focuses on the unique cross-institutional Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL) that has promoted comparisons with, and understanding of, Japanese law since its establishment in 2002, including sustained support from Harald Baum (Part II). The essay surveys achievements and challenges in research, funded projects and publications in Japanese law (Part III), teaching and learning initiatives about Japanese law (Part IV) and wider community engagement (especially between the legal professions in Japan and Australia) also facilitated by ANJeL (Part V). It concludes that Japanese law engagement has remained surprisingly strong, despite the attraction of diversifying into Asian law more widely, although both fields are facing challenges nurturing the “next generation” of experts in Australia. 

I. Introduction: Consolidating Japanese Law in Australia

Japan has long been an attractive subject for comparative law. It first provided a rich case study of successfully “importing” law – first on Chinese, then Western models – interacting with indigenous norms and institutions. Japan then attracted interest for “exporting” law – in parts of Asia in the colonial era, to the West since its economic heyday in the 1980s, and to Asia and elsewhere over the last few decades as part of Japan’s overseas development aid programs. Japan has also been central to developing, and often empirically testing, theories as to how law interacts with society.[1] As is now well known, the main contenders are that “the Japanese don’t like law” (the culturalist theory), “they can’t like law” (the institutional barriers theory), “they are made not to like law” (the elite management theory), “they like predictable law” (the economic rationalist theory, implying instead that the legal system works well), or some hybrid approach.[2]

The world of Japanese law scholarship, however, has divided into several sub-worlds.[3] First, “Japanese law” comprises studies published in English, mainly by those versed in the Anglo-American legal tradition. The US sub-tradition – led by its elite law schools – favours analyses that engage big theoretical issues, often influenced by disciplines other than law (such as cultural studies, politics or economics), and related empirical work. Topics for analysis also tend to be quite wide-ranging. The English sub-tradition favours more black-letter analyses, with more focus on practical issues particularly in business law. Secondly, the German-language scholarship comparing Japanese law, “Japanisches Recht”, is likewise often quite black-letter in its approach but also covers quite a wide range of topics, thanks to a shared legal history. Thirdly, we have studies of “nihon-ho” written in Japanese, mostly by Japanese scholars for a Japanese audience, which of course cover all topics in Japanese law. The analyses tend to be mostly black-letter law but alongside a rich tradition of legal theory and sociology, sometimes impacting on legal analysis directly, and sometimes impacting indirectly as some Japanese scholars spend time in or with US law schools.

Australia generally follows the English sub-tradition, and its related variant of the common law based on more formal reasoning patterns and supporting legal institutions.[4] Yet by the 1980s, when Japanese law scholarship started to take off in Australia, it had already come under more influence generally from US approaches to legal analysis. (Scholarship in England itself was also developing more emphasis on “law in context” and substantive reasoning.) From the outset, therefore, Japanese law studies in Australia tended to combine both black-letter and contextualist analyses – albeit arguably with more theoretical ecumenicalism than say than in the US.[5] For practical reasons, namely burgeoning trade and investment relations, the focus did tend to be on business law topics. However, as bilateral relations broadened (including more geopolitical links and shared involvement in international treaty regimes), and as the numbers of Japanese law scholars and publications gradually grew, a wider array of Japanese law topics were researched and taught. This broadening and accretion arguably generated more influence from Japanese law for students, legal professionals, and makers of law and policy in Australia.

However, Australia engaged in, and was more impacted by, Japanese law scholarship from the 1980s, during the same period as Australia also ramped up its studies of Asian legal systems more generally. This was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it allowed scholars to get university appointments and research grants by invoking the broader, and therefore more appealing, category of “Asian law”. Sometimes there were good methodological reasons for emphasising the wider category, given the historical or structural links between Japanese and other Asian legal systems, but there were also practical advantages for securing resources to pursue the study of Japan “within Asia”. As can happen with new fields of law, history or other fields of scholarship,[6] some commentary emphasised how “Asian law” was distinct from the field of comparative law. However, other work argued that the latter had become more interdisciplinary in approach as well, certainly by the turn of the 20th century.[7]

On the other hand, hitching Japanese law scholarship to the rising star of “Asian law” also had potential downsides. Research and publications could end up being directed at Asian legal systems, “hollowing out” Japanese law scholarship and teaching. Coupling Japanese with Asian law also risked undermining a Japan focus and commitment by Australian law schools if and when they reduced their enthusiasm for Asian law. Indeed, a recent short survey of Asian law scholarship for the Asian Studies Association of Australia suggests that that day is already nigh, arguably reflecting a reduction in government and other support across universities for Asia-focused initiatives more generally. Nonetheless, that analysis acknowledges that Asian law expertise remains underpinned by university centres or other institutional arrangements, which are difficult to unwind, thus making its impact more sustainable even if individual scholars find fewer appointments, research grants or teaching opportunities.[8] Even if the focus on Asian law does diminish in Australia, therefore, the institutional entrenchment of Japanese law may shield it from diminishing relevance and influence.

This essay therefore concentrates on a key organisation that has promoted comparisons with, and understanding of, Japanese law over the last two decades, catching the Asian law wave and hopefully riding it out reasonably well if and when that wave fades away. Supported from the outset by Harald Baum, the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL) has hopefully created sufficient critical mass to ensure that Japanese law continues to have widespread impact not just across academic research in Australia, but also to a significant extent within the legal profession and even some aspects of the wider community. Maintaining a solid base for the “export” of Japanese law into these sectors in Australia, in turn, should allow Japanese counterparts to productively “re-import” elements of Australian law and practice.

[1] L. Nottage, The Development of Comparative Law in Japan, in: M. Reimann and R. Zimmerman (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (2019) 201, with a manuscript version at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3276469.

[2] M. Abe and L. Nottage, Japanese Law, in: J. Smits (ed.) Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (2020) (forthcoming), with a manuscript version of this contribution for a third edition at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672112.

[3] L. Nottage, Japanisches Recht, Japanese Law and Nihon-ho: Towards New Transnational Collaboration in Research and Teaching, Journal of Japanese Law 2001, 12, 17; T. Ginsburg, L. Nottage and H. Sono (eds.), The Multiple Worlds of Japanese Law: Disjunctions and Conjunctions (Victoria, Canada 2001). Compare also H. Baum, Teaching and Researching Japanese Law: A German Perspective, in: S. Steele and K. Taylor (eds.) Legal Education in Asia: Globalization, Change and Contexts (2011) 89

[4] See generally L. Nottage, Form, Substance and Neo-Proceduralism in Comparative Contract Law: The Law in Books and the Law in Action in England, New Zealand, Japan and the U.S. (Ph.D in Law thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2002), available via http://hdl.handle.net/10063/778.

[5] M. Smith, Australian Perspectives on Asian Law: Directions for the Next Decade, in: V. Taylor (ed.) Asian Laws Through Australian Eyes (2007) 3. As an example of more black-letter Japanese law works led by Australia-based scholars, Veronica Taylor took over editing and writing for the CCH Japan Business Law Guide loose-leaf series from 2000-2006, followed by Luke Nottage until 2009. A volume comprising four of its chapters was also spun off as CCH Business Law in Japan, Volume 1 (2008, Singapore/Tokyo: CCH, ISBN 978-4-915845-08-6).

[6] Examples include how the leaders of the Enlightenment distinguished the preceding supposed “Dark Ages”, or how promoters of mediation differentiated that process as more purely consensual and hence more genuine “alternative dispute resolution” compared to arbitration: L. Nottage, Is (International) Commercial Arbitration ADR?, The Arbitrator and Mediator 2002, 20, 83, also at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=838044.

[7] Compare V. Taylor, Beyond Legal Orientalism, in: V. Taylor (ed.) Asian Laws Through Australian Eyes (2007) 47 with L. Nottage, Comparative Law, Asian Law, and Japanese Law, Journal of Japanese Law 2003, 8, 41 also at https://ssrn.com/abstract=837964.

[8]  M. Crouch, ‘Asian Law in Australian Universities: Research centres as critical institutional commitments’, Asian Studies (Blog Post, 21 April 2020) https://asaa.asn.au/asian-law-in-australian-universities-research-centres-as-critical-institutional-commitments/.

Commercial Dispute Resolution and Arbitration in Japan

Written by: Luke Nottage and Nobumichi Teramura (unfootnoted draft for Sarah Biddulph and Kathryn Taylor (eds) Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Asian Law, Elgar, forthcoming)

 “Commercial Dispute Resolution and Arbitration in Japan”

For: Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Asian Law

Luke Nottage and Nobumichi Teramura

1. Civil Procedure and Litigation

The Civil Procedure Code, enacted as the framework for civil litigation in the late 19th century as Japan adopted a modern Western legal system, derived mainly from German law. The Code  experienced significant reforms after WW2 (adopting the more “adversarial principle”) and 1998 (based partly on some emerging court practices, to streamline identification of legal issues and related evidence-taking, as well as new small claims procedures and other provisions to reduce delays).[1] The 1999-2001 Justice System Reform Council Recommendations resulted in introducing expert commissioners to advise judges in complex cases, an advance notice of suit option, and other “micro”-level reforms, but also expanded numbers of bengoshi lawyers and judges aiming for “macro”-level impact.[2] Those Recommendations sought mainly to reduce perceived “structural barriers” to initiate lawsuits, which arguably underpin a comparatively low civil litigation rate in Japan especially over the 1950s-70s. However, some instead argue that this low propensity to sue is related to “cultural” factors like preferences to avoid confrontation and fear of “losing face” (although this may be related to risk-averseness especially in larger organisations), or a rational avoidance of litigation costs by settling in the shadow of comparatively predictable substantive law in Japan.[3]

Japan’s still predominantly civil law tradition means that civil litigation maintains various features not usually found in common law systems. These include limited pre-trial discovery (although some analogues[4]), non-continuous trials (though delays decreased from 2000s), no juries (only for some serious criminal cases, reintroduced from 2009), active case management by judges (including right not duty to “clarify” the law especially for self-represented litigants, and encouragement of settlement), three career judges hearing complex civil cases at first instance, and no dissenting opinions published (other than in the highest Supreme Court).[5]

2. Mediation

In Japan, mediation is mostly court-annexed, with tradition going back to the pre-WW2 era (eg farm tenancy disputes,[6] although such disputes were often settled through direct and informal negotiations between land owners and tenants). Parties may choose between two main types of mediation. One is conducted by the judge(s) assigned the case, although in larger courts like Tokyo and Osaka, the case may be referred to a division where mediation is attempted by other judges, and then returned to the original judge(s) if settlement fails. The second type is mediation under the 1951 Civil Conciliation Act, mandated by the court or more typically agreed by parties: a conciliation committee consisting of a judge and two non-judges having expert knowledge and experience lead the mediation settlements. In both scenarios, it is quite common among the judicial mediators to caucus separately with each party (unlike eg Germany, where judges encourage settlement in open court).[7]

The government also provides mediation service. For instance, some formal government-supported mediation is available, eg for environmental pollution or neighbourhood disputes (eg noise),[8] or recently for financial institutions.[9] Informal government-supported mediation schemes are available too for consumer disputes, through Consumer Lifestyle Centre. The government also promoted criteria (such as independence of formal mediators from any industry associations) for Product Liability (PL) ADR Centres, created from the mid-1990s.[10]

Due to very high public trust in the court-annexed and government-supported schemes, government financial support for them and perhaps still comparatively fewer disputes, Japan has less privately-supplied mediation services. The Justice Reform Council perceived this as another structural barrier, so the 2004 Act on Promotion of Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution encouraged private mediation through government certification to build trust and visibility, allowing such organisations to make limitation periods tolled during their mediations (unlike non-certified mediation suppliers).[11] Many got certified, both some old institutions (like Bar Associations providing mediation services) and quite a few new ones (such as Japan Sport Arbitration Agency),[12] but caseloads have not increased much especially for commercial dispute resolution.[13]

3. Arbitration

Arbitration legislation was also initially also derived originally from Germany: the arbitration section in its Civil Procedure Code also from the late 19th century. This legislation remained basically unchanged in Japan’s 1998 civil procedure reform, despite an earlier push from academics to adopt the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law template that was starting to spread especially around the Asia-Pacific region. Arbitration was seen as less important compared to improving the civil litigation and mediation environment because it was little used domestically (except eg a scheme for disputes between construction companies and the government).[14] For international transactions, Japanese commercial parties seemed quite content to agree to arbitration in foreign seats, perhaps in exchange for other benefits received in contract negotiations. Part of the thinking may also have been they were unlikely to get involved in (expensive) formal dispute resolution and, in particular, to initiate claims. Hence some Japanese parties and their legal advisors established the comparatively unusual practice of “finger-pointing clauses” in arbitration agreements, designating the defendant’s domicile as the seat of arbitration.

Accordingly, the caseloads of the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (JCAA) and Tokyo Maritime Arbitration Commission (TOMAC), as well as other international arbitrations with seat in Japan (eg under the ICC Arbitration Rules or ad hoc UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules), remained few even over 2000s, while Asian centres in Singapore, China and HK recorded large increases in arbitration cases. Nevertheless, more foreign counsel and arbitrators joined the arbitration market especially after the 2003 reform of the Act on Special Measures Concerning the Handling of Legal Services by Foreign Lawyers (the Foreign Lawyers Act) that allowed full profit sharing with international firms established in Japan. There also remained a salient practice of Arb-Med, with arbitral tribunals actively encouraging settlement, especially when Japanese parties, counsel and/or arbitrators were involved.[15]

As part of Justice System Reform Council Recommendations, however, the 2003 Arbitration Act was enacted based on the 1985 UNCITRAL Model Law. Some tweaks to that template included extending it from international to domestic arbitration cases (hence, allowing no appeals for errors of law), adding criminal sanctions for corrupt arbitrators (to build trust in arbitration), and requiring express written consent from parties for Arb-Med (given natural justice concerns). Case law has been generally pro-arbitration, enforcing most foreign arbitral agreements and awards in accordance with the 1958 New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.[16] However, not many judgments, including those related to international arbitration, are translated into English. Few judges give speeches promoting Japan as a seat for arbitration or go on to become arbitrators after retirement — instead, most have been professors and (increasingly) local or foreign lawyers —  unlike in common law jurisdictions like Singapore or Australia where (former) judges play more active roles in promoting arbitration generally. JCAA and TOMAC did amend their Rules around the time of the 2003 Act and subsequently from time to time. However, they continued to mostly administer cases involving at least one Japanese party, without marketing their centres aggressively to see large increases in caseloads.[17]

Since 2018, nonetheless, we have witnessed an elevated political push for Japan to catch up with international competitors and become more of an international dispute resolution hub regionally. Along with the Japan International Mediation Centre (JIMC) Kyoto (an earlier academic / law society joint venture), the Japan International Dispute Resolution Centre (JIDRC) was established with government-supported facilities in Osaka and then Tokyo, with quite intense marketing despite the pandemic. A new Tokyo-based institution, International Arbitration Centre in Tokyo (IACT), focuses on intellectual property arbitration. These governmental initiatives prompted JCAA to enact three sets of new Rules from 2019. Amendments to allow more foreign law representation in foreign-related arbitrations seated in Japan.[18] Moreover, formal consultation was launched in 2020, albeit belatedly by Asia-Pacific standards, to revise the 2003 Arbitration Act along more of the lines of the 2006 UNCITRAL Model Law amendments especially on tribunal-issued interim measures.[19]  This is important especially for marketing Japan as a seat, although the 2003 Act had already anticipated a few provisions on interim measures that were being discussed in UNCITRAL and incorporated into their 2006 Model Law amendments.[20]

Those new public and private initiatives should help further reduce structural barriers to arbitrating in Japan, but it is still unlikely that arbitration will ever become popular for domestic dispute resolution. Moreover, it is too early to tell whether these efforts will make Japan a significantly more popular seat for international arbitrations.

[1] Yasuhei Taniguchi, ‘The 1996 Code of Civil Procedure of Japan-A Procedure for the Coming Century?’ (1997) 45 The American Journal of Comparative Law 767.

[2] Translated at https://japan.kantei.go.jp/policy/sihou/singikai/990612_e.html; Luke Nottage, ‘Civil Procedure Reforms in Japan: The Latest Round’ (2005) 22 Ritsumeikan Law Review 81,  available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=837864.

[3] Masaki Abe and Luke Nottage, ‘Japanese Law’ in Jan Smits (ed), Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law (3rd edn, Edward Elgar Publishing 2022), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3672112 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3672112 .

[4] Andrew M. Pardieck, ‘Discovery in Japan’ (2021) 31 Indiana International & Comparative Law Review 61.

[5] See generally eg Shusuke Kakiuchi, ‘Access to justice in Japan’ (2007) Japanese Law Resources <http://www.asianlii.org/jp/other/JPLRes/2007/1.html> .

[6] Dimitri Vanoverbeke, Community and State in the Japanese Farm Village: Farm Tenancy Conciliation, 1924-1938 (Leuven University Press 2004). “

[7] Yasunobu Sato, Commercial Dispute Processing and Japan (Kluwer Academic Publishing 2001); Harald Baum, ‘Mediation in Japan. Development, Forms, Regulation and Practice of Out-of-Court Dispute Resolution’ in Klaus J. Hopt and Felix Steffek (eds), Mediation: Principles and Regulation in Comparative Perspective (Oxford University Press 2012).

[8] Mark D. West, ‘The Resolution of Karaoke Disputes: The Calculus of Institutions and Social Capital’ (2002) 28 The Journal of Japanese Studies 301 (demonstrating the success of the Internal Affairs Ministry’s Pollution Complaint Counsellor in dealing with noise complaints); Shiro Kawashima, ‘A Survey of Environmental Law and Policy in Japan’ (1994) 20 North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation 231; Luke Nottage, ‘The Cultural (Re)Turn in Japanese Law Studies’ (2009) 39 Victoria University of Wellington Law Review 755.

[9] Tomohiko Maeda and Andrew M. Pardieck, ‘ADR In Japan’s Financial Markets & the Rule of Law’ (2018) 10 Northeastern University Law Review 400.

[10] Luke Nottage and Yoshitaka Wada, ‘Japan’s New Product Liability ADR Centers: Bureaucratic, Industry, or Consumer Informalism?’ (1998) 3 Journal of Japanese Law 40.

[11] Aya Yamada, ‘ADR in Japan: Does The New Law Liberalize ADR From Historical Shackles or Legalize It?’ (2009) 2 Contemporary Asia Arbitration Journal 1.

[12] As of 9 April 2022, there are 163 certified organisations: Ministry of Justice, ‘The List of Certified ADR Providers [in Japanese]’ (n.d.)  <https://www.moj.go.jp/KANBOU/ADR/jigyousya/ninsyou-index.html> accessed 9 April 2022.

[13] James Claxton, Luke Nottage and Nobumichi Teramura, ‘Disruption as a Catalyst for International Dispute Services in Japan: No Longer Business as Usual?’ in Luke Nottage and others (eds), New Frontiers in Asia-Pacific International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution (Wolters Kluwer 2021).

[14] Tatsuya Nakamura and Luke Nottage, ‘Arbitration in Japan’ in Shahla F. Ali and Tom Ginsburg (eds), International Commercial Arbitration in Asia (3rd edn, Juris 2013).

[15] Luke Nottage, International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration: Australia and Japan in Regional and Global Contexts (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021), Chapter 4.

[16] Yasuhei Taniguchi and Tatsuya Nakamura, National Report for Japan (2019 through 2022), in Lise Bosman (ed), ICCA International Handbook on Commercial Arbitration (ICCA & Kluwer Law International 2020, Supplement No. 120, February 2022) at 36-39.

[17] Nobumichi Teramura and Luke Nottage, ‘Arbitration Reform in Japan: Reluctant Legislature and Institutional Challenges’ in Weixia Gu and Anselmo Reyes (eds), Arbitration Reform in Asia (Hart Publishing 2018).

[18] Junya Naito and Ryo Otobe, ‘The Act on Special Measures concerning the Handling of Legal Services by Foreign Lawyers —Recent Developments toward Internationalization’ (2020) 1 Japan Commercial Arbitration Journal 34.

[19] WeiJian Teo and Yusuke Iwata, ‘The Rise of Japan Arbitration: A Balance to the Common Law Forces of International Arbitration in Asia?’, (Kluwer Arbitration Blog, 6 July 2021) <http://arbitrationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2021/07/06/the-rise-of-japan-arbitration-a-balance-to-the-common-law-forces-of-international-arbitration-in-asia/>.

[20] James Claxton, Luke Nottage and Nobumichi Teramura, ‘Developing Japan as a Regional Hub for International Dispute Resolution: Dream Come True or Daydream?’ (2019) 47 Journal of Japanese Law 109.

Japan: Sustainable Corporate Governance and ‘Gradual Transformation’

[ANJeL Program Convenor Prof Souichirou Kozuka and I have written a shorter chapter on Japan for the 5th edition of Principles of Contemporary Corporate Governance (by Jean Jacques du Plessis, Anil Hargovan and Jason Harris): see our longer manuscript version reproduced here for the 4th edition published by Cambridge University Press in 2018). As indicated in the introduction below, we pay particular attention to the hot topic internationally of ESG (environmental, social and governance) factors in corporate activity and investment, highlighting changes and (mostly) continuities in the corporate governance system behind Japan’s rapid uptake of ESG and sustainable or responsible investment.]

Japan developed vibrant commercial activity domestically towards the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate era (1603-1867), when it largely closed itself off to the world. As the country re-opened and expanded industrialisation over the Meiji Era (1868-1912), codifications and legal institutions were introduced following the European civil law tradition. Stock exchanges were established and investment grew into often family-owned companies, resulting in considerable emphasis on shareholder primacy before World War II.

However, after the US-led Allied Occupation (1946-51) until at least the 1980s, Japan became renowned for its stakeholder approach to corporate governance. More emphasis was placed on the interests and roles of employees (especially those in “lifelong employment”), creditors (especially “main banks”) and key suppliers or corporate customers (including in “keiretsu” corporate groups, and/or involving significant cross-shareholdings). These three practices influencing corporate governance, only loosely underpinned by relevant legislation, started to unravel after an asset bubble collapsed and Japan entered a “lost decade” of economic stagnation from the 1990s. Growing foreign investment into the Japanese stock market also supported a “gradual transformation” toward more shareholder primacy. This has involved some more protection for minority shareholders, and partial shifts towards a “monitoring” rather than executive board especially in listed companies (as elaborated in Part 11.2 of our new chapter).

The transformation since the 1990s has been reinforced by the creation of a new legislative regime (Part 11.3) and more recent “soft law” Codes for corporate governance and engagement or stewardship by institutional investors (Part II.4). Japan has experienced three major waves in the development of corporate law, at roughly half-century intervals. The Meiji-era Commercial Code enacted around the turn of the 20th century was followed by US-inspired reforms during the post-war Occupation, then much more wide-ranging reforms from around the turn of the 21st century prompted by Japan’s economic slowdown. Even in terms of formal legislative changes, the trajectory has not been one of straightforward ‘Americanisation’, and the overall position now reached is also very different from US law, as evidenced by the partial persistence of the statutory auditor governance structure inspired by German law. Also evident are some influences from – or at least parallels with – aspects of English law. These are epitomised recently in listing requirements, including a ‘comply or explain’ Corporate Governance Code since 2015, and an earlier tendency in takeover regulation to give priority to decisions of shareholders over those of directors. The impact of German law, filtered sometimes nowadays through EU law, remains important too. Japan’s complex corporate law landscape is also influenced by  the three distinctive features of post-War corporate governance practice mentioned above, even though they too have been undergoing gradual transformations.

Much discussion has emerged recently also around ESG issues for investors and managers in Japan, as in many other jurisdictions with large securities markets (Part II.5). A key question is whether this means even-greater shareholder primacy, as foreign institutional investors in particular pushed for further ESG initiatives from Japanese firms, or whether it marks their return towards more stakeholder-based corporate governance. The answer is important for predicting likely future directions (Part II.6).

Asia-Pacific Online Legal Education Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

[Update: video recording on Youtube – click here.]

This 1 February 2022 noon-1.30pm (AEDT) webinar at Sydney Law School discusses how online (university or other) legal education interacts with each jurisdiction’s legal profession, university system, and ICT infrastructure, as well as how online legal education has developed both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, across several Asia-Pacific jurisdictions: Australia, Japan, Canada, Brunei/Malaysia/Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong. It draws on draft National Reports for an International Academy of Comparative Law conference hosted over 23-28 October 2022 in Asuncion (Paraguay), comparing over 20 jurisdictions worldwide, for a volume to be published by Intersentia co-edited by Professors Luke Nottage and Makoto Ibusuki.

Find out more about the project, including links to several draft reports.

Speakers:
Registration – gratis:

Please click here to register online.

Please click here to register in-person. (There are limited places available to attend this event in-person.)

This event is hosted by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at Sydney Law School, Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL) and the Transnational Law and Policy Centre at the University of Wollongong.

Guest Blog: The Role of Independent Directors in Contemporary Asia

Written by: Joseph Black (CAPLUS law student intern, 2021)

On 26 October 2021 the Contemporary Asia International Forum Series coordinated a timely panel event entitled ‘The Role of Independent Directors in Contemporary Asia’. The panel was moderated by Dr Edith I Tzu Su, Associate Professor at the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan, the host institution. The event was supported by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney. Panelists were Dr Indraijt Dube, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur; Dr Anil Hargovan, Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales; Dr Luke Nottage, Professor of Comparative and Transnational Business Law at the University of Sydney; and Dr Chun-Ren Chen, Professor at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. We had the opportunity to explore key and original themes: the roles of independent directors in India; the roles of independent directors in Southeast Asia; and more. A few major questions reverberated throughout the session: are independent directors (although not executives or employees) de facto part of a wider managerial team; what are the implications of transplanting non-Asian laws and norms into Asian contexts (with a stronger blockholder tradition even in listed companies) and how are Asian companies distinguished from non-Asian companies? What made the webinar particularly interesting is that speakers had diverse insights and answers to these very topical and pressing questions.

After Dr Su commenced the session and introduced speakers, and Dean Chang Yen Li of the National Chung Hsing University delivered a cordial welcome, Dr Nottage commenced the discussion on corporate governance and independent directors, sketching the growth of sharemarkets in ASEAN and other parts of Asia, focusing on Malaysia and more briefly Cambodia. He proposed comparisons focusing on why and when independent director requirements are introduced, how this happens, what they are, and where they actually or potentially have impacts. Dr Nottage noted that Malaysia presents interesting data on independent directors given its peculiar history. Amid and after the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the World Bank and IMF encouraged (without requiring) changes and new corporate governance regulations in Malaysia. Notably, Malaysia was an early leader calling for independent directors (implementing requirements before Australia), but commentators have wondered wonders if this was ‘window dressing’ to lure back foreign investors (and regain foreign investors who had fled after the financial crisis). While they may have tried to introduce independent director requirements, it is critical to consider that there are always problems with legal transplants. Malaysia developed (like Thailand[1]) a three-tiered system of mandatory listing rules, ‘comply or explain’ Corporate Governance Code higher standards, and even higher independent director requirements that listed companies can voluntary disclose (but for which they do not need to explain non-compliance). A particular innovation – somewhat paralleling Indian corporate law reforms in 2013 – is is to require a two-tier vote (including a majority of the minority) for directors serving more than 12 years.

By contrast, Cambodia has a much newer and smaller sharemarket, with a less well-resourced regulator, so relies just on mandatory minimum standards. Those exclude from independent directors any individuals serving in competing firms, as in Thailand, perhaps reflecting the weakness of competition law and enforcement.[2] It will be interesting to observe how the country changes and independent director requirements start to be tightened in an effort to make them more functional. Following Dr Nottage, Dr Dube’s discussion largely focused on the role of independent directors in contemporary India. Dr Dube posed interesting questions – such as whether Indian corporate governance needs to be ‘Indianised’ – and explored the emergence of diverse laws in tandem with growing conceptualisations of independent directors in the Indian context. Dr Dube seemed to use a very interesting word – calibrating – to define continuity and change in this area in India in recent years. Dr Dube discussed the mandatory appointment of women independent directors; declaration of independence; auditing independence; the theory that independent directors played significant roles in raising market size, profitability, and sustainability; and evidence-based research finding a positive correlation between influences of independent directors and companies’ policies on health, safety, and environmental audits. Dr Dube noted the Tata Group Supreme Court case in 2016 (regarding the removal of then chairman Cyrus Mistry from office and later the company’s board) and implications (i.e., normalising independent directors in this context?).

Later, Dr Hargovan and Dr Chen posed as commenters and critically appraised Dr Nottage and Dr Dube. Dr Chen particularly analysed the concept of novel law on independent directors as window dressing to attract foreign investment, whether independent directors are supposed to serve as managers or a check against managers, tensions in boardrooms, incumbent directors refusing independent directors access to certain corporate data in Taiwan, seemingly inevitable conflicts between majority and minority shareholders, and implications of declaring independence (i.e., is it just a declaration?). Dr Hargovan referred to minority interests in family-dominated companies in Asia, independence from whom and for what (definitional issues), the perils of the legal transplant, optimal board composition (taking into account local conditions and cultures), characteristics of Asian companies (tangential to varieties of capitalism), the Kotak Committee Report in India (2017), and indicia of independence (interestingly similar between say Australia and India). Dr Hargovan noted that listed companies in Asia are more likely to be controlled by promoters than in Australia, where ownership is typically more diffused and the participation of institutional investors in corporate ownership follows a different pattern. Dr Hargovan closed by noting that the Anglo-Australian model is not guaranteed to be successfully transplanted to Asian countries; a lot depends on the economy and other factors, as illustrated by his recent article on Indian developments.[3]

Dr Nottage and Dr Dube closed with a few short words in response, although time was limited. To view the recording and for further Contemporary Asia International Forum Series events, please contact Dr Edith I Tzu Su at edithsu@nchu.edu.tw.

***

Joseph Black is a Juris Doctor student at the University of Sydney and anticipates commencing his Masters of International Law program from February 2022. Joseph is an intern with the CAPLUS and is interested in Japanese Law, Chinese Law, Indonesian Law, East Asian Studies, and other fields.

[1] Nottage, Luke R., Independent Directors and Corporate Governance in Thailand: A New Frontier (May 13, 2020). Journal of Transnational Law and Policy, 31 (Forthcoming, early 2022), Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 20/26, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3599705

[2] Nottage, Luke R., Fledgling Corporate Governance and Independent Directors in Cambodia’s Securities Market (November 14, 2019). Australian Journal of Corporate Law, 35, 2020, pp. 208-234, Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 19/60, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3459361

[3] Hanrahan P; Hargovan A, 2020, ‘Legislating the concept of the independent company director: Recent Indian reforms seen through Australian eyes’, Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, vol. 20, pp. 86 – 114, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14729342.2020.1773018