The 2020 session will be the 12th year of Meiji University Law in Japan Program; an intensive two-week program arranged for international students who would like to study Japanese law in its social and cultural context. Major fields of current domestic law as well as international law will be covered in this program: constitutional law, civil law and procedure, criminal law, competition law, company law, labor law, intellectual property law and tax law. Importantly, the program does not place emphasis on discussing law on a clause-by-clause basis, but allows the participants to understand the characteristics of Japanese law from a broader comparative and socio-cultural perspective. The participants will learn not only key provisions of Japanese law, but also the institutional and historical contexts in which law works.

All lectures and field trips are conducted in English, so that non-Japanese speakers are able to be acquainted with the “essence and spirit” of Japanese law without language barrier. The participants will gain an understanding of the law and the legal system in Japan as a subject of the social sciences and humanities. We also welcome non-law students who major(ed) in political science, sociology, economics and other social sciences, and the humanities. For law students, it will be an excellent opportunity to learn from a comparative perspective how law functions in different social contexts.

 Senior Assistant Professor, Shuhei Mizuta