2025 Volume 4 Issue 2 Article ID: lr.25-007
This lecture was presented at the Global Initiative on Sustainable and Healthy Work-hosted symposium, “Mental Health and Law: Why We Needed a New Discipline of Occupational Health Law,” held on July 18, 2025, at EXPO 2025 Osaka–Kansai. The speaker introduced the academic field of “Occupational Health Law,” which aims to address increasingly complex health-related challenges in the workplace—particularly gray-zone issues such as mental health problems and lifestyle-related diseases—through a collaboration between preventive medicine and preventive law. The presentation highlighted the conceptual foundations, practical significance, and interdisciplinary methods of this field, which was originally proposed and developed by Professor Takenori Mishiba of Kindai University. The presentation proposed “living law,” “procedural rationality,” and “risk creator liability” as foundational theories to guide legal and organizational responses. The lecture concluded by asserting the relevance of Occupational Health Law as a new social policy science capable of shaping healthier, more just work environments.
