Comparative Advantage of Japanese Legal Assistance: Learning from the Cases of Japanese Involvement in Vietnam

Abstract

This article attempts to identify the comparative advantage of Japan's role in the area of international assistance to legal and judicial reforms. Studies in the area of “law and development” seem to have been separated between meta-theories on ultimate ideals of legal assistance and highly practical arguments on how to promote individual projects. The author attempts to go in between these two extremes, to induce lessons from practical cases mostly taken from Japanese assistance to Vietnam, which already has fifteen years' experience. In contrast to the legal-transplant-type approach taken by leading international donors, Japanese approach is observed to be more concerned about the systemic consistency of local legal regime, as well as local socio-economic needs. Perhaps, a comparative advantage of Japanese assistance must lie in the hybrid nature of Japanese law in itself having realized a formal and consistent code system while somehow successfully preserving and incorporating the customary and conciliatory culture as Asian law.