On the Potential of the Classic Japanese Theories of Sociology of Law

After the end of the Cold War, since early 1990s, the structure of the world society has been greatly changing under the pressure of globalization. The world society becomes politically multi-polarized, economically covered with the global market and the law becomes complex and hybrid on the global level. Every national society becomes multi-lingual and multi-cultural. Worldwide information networks make the global transaction much easier than in former times. Legal scholars are as if on an uncertain voyage.

However, against all expectations, I insist that we can find a helpful compass for the voyage in the discussion by classic Japanese socio-legal theorists. The modern Japanese law had been constituted under the pressure of the global colonialization in the second half of 19th century, since opening the country in the late Edo era. Still in the first half of 20th century, Japanese legal scholars had to be strongly conscious of the global pressure to harmonize between traditional Japanese/Asian laws and modernized Western laws. Even Japan’s defeat in World War II was regarded as a result of less attainment of the legal modernization in Japan. The pioneer theorists of sociology of law acted in that age.

History repeats itself. Global legal issues similar to that of in the age of colonialization have been revived since 1990s. Current hot issues relating to the interface between the global economic laws and domestic civil laws are quite similar to that of the transplantation of western law into Japanese/Asian society. The discussion on the support for the development of laws in underdeveloped countries is also a revived issue in the colonialization age. Of course, the discussions on the polarization between traditional Japanese/Asian and modernized Western law are outdated. Nevertheless, it seems that we can extract valuable indications from the classic Japanese theories of sociology of law.