Why Do We Miss the Wood for the Trees?
A Response from a Nihon-hô Scholar

Makoto Ibusuki

 

I.     Background Comments

1.   Black-letter Law Doctrine, Comparative Law, and Legal Writing

2.   Intuition and Images in Academia

3.   Perspectives on Law

4.   Academic Evaluation

5.   Philosophy of Legal Scholars

II.    Exceptions

III.   Suggestions

1.   Promoting Collaborative Work with Japanese Scholars

2.   Digitalizing Japanese Law Material on the Internet

3.   Creating Independent Academic Groups Based in Cyberspace

4.   Having Trained Law Librarians for Japanese Law

5.   Making Newsletters or Getting Space in a Commercial Legal
Magazine for Advertising Japanese Law Studies

IV.   Conclusion

 

I.     Background Comments

Some distinctive aspects in Japanese legal society, particularly in academic society, appear to be the cause and background for the limited impact of Japanese law study by foreign scholars. As is common with this type of observation, however, I should admit that the whole of the description below depends on my own experiences and simple ideas, not based on any quantitative data.

 

1.    Black-letter Law Doctrine, Comparative Law, and Legal Writing

In Japan, many legal articles and materials describing foreign law appear in periodical indexes monthly. However, in Japanese legal academic society, due to the strong influence from legal positivism, reference to foreign law has been provided as mere knowledge for enacting and/or interpreting a law. In Japan, the role of comparative law is limited to informing about a different legal culture and to teaching it in classrooms, not to look at our own law and legal system from another perspective. The reason for such a tendency lies partly in the style and the concept of a legal thesis in Japanese law faculties. The main interests of Japanese scholars in legal academia are basically in legal interpretation of articles in legislation, etc. The authors, such as students in masters and doctoral courses, need to concentrate on filling out their draft theses by referring to a lot of foreign materials concerning relevant legal issues. Comparative legal study in Japan has been developed as one of the tools for legal interpretation, not as a guide to look at our own law from a broad perspective. As a result, these authors