On September 29, 1972, as the result of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and the PRC, the ROC shut down its Embassy and a Consular Office in Tokyo, and moreover, broke off diplomatic relations with Japan. However, the Premier of the PRC, Zhou Enlai accepted what amounted to a substantive relationship between Japan and the ROC. The Japanese and -ROC governments, in order to maintain economic and cultural exchange, established a civilian office in December 1972, and subsequently both sides concluded an "Agreement on the Establishment of Offices between the Interchange Association and Association of East Asian Relations". Japan and ROC referred to the "Sino-Japan Establishment of a Trade Liaison Office Agreement" and the "Vienna Convention on Consular Relations", and prepared an "Agreement on the Establishment of Offices between Interchange Association and Association of East Asian Relations". The Interchange Association and Association of East Asian Relations are not only nominally private institutions; they, have not legal basis, though they do in fact enjoy some diplomatic privileges. Therefore both sides play a more important role than the traditional consular office.

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The World Parks Congress sponsored by IUCN has been held once every ten years since 1962. Congress members discuss various ways to manage protected areas and create constructive solutions and outputs to transmit to other international conferences. Their discussions cover not only landscapes but also seascapes, areas that have long been recognized as natural assets vital to protect for the preservation of the marine environment and living resources. Biodiversity conservation has recently been incorporated as an agenda in the new protected areas through the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and other environmental initiatives. This article will appraise products of each congress in terms of international law focused on the recommendations of marine-protected areas in the World Parks Congress. First, we review the idea of protected areas advocated by IUCN in terms of the contents of the recommendations and the protected areas classifications adopted by the congress. Second, we review various arguments concerning marine-protected areas on the high seas, mainly in the context of biodiversity conservation. Finally, we examine the prospects for securing the effectiveness of new legal management mechanisms in marine-protected areas put forward in the 6th World Parks Congress held in Sydney on November 2014.

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This Paper examines the role of Juniot Chamber International(JCI) in election in Japan. JCI is regarded as a grooming ground for many Politicians in Japan. One of the most important activities in the JCI is to propose public policies. JCI the 21 Century Rincho Since 2003 in its capacity as a public policy think. JCI holds panels on elections during pre-election campaigns and reviews Party Manifestos of the ruling party. In this paper we examine whether JCI's activities are promoting problem for civic education.

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This article examines the urban politics of policy-making and individual participation in politics at the local government level in the United States with a focus on the Seattle city government. Through my examination I hope to identify crucial determinants of policy in American local governments. The theory of "urban regime" has been regarded as one of the dominant theories for the study of American urban politics. According to this theory, the local government policy is decided by an "urban regime" formed through the cooperation of official actors (the mayor, the council, etc.) and unofficial actors (companies, inhabitants, citizen groups, etc.). This theory has been widely applied as a useful approach for the study and discussion of American urban politics since it appeared in the late 1980s. American local governments have faced financial strains and tumultuous movements such as the "Tea Party" and "Occupy" movements in recent years. In this article I attempt to illustrate whether the urban regime theory can still explain the changes in American urban politics in the rapidly shifting political climate in the US over the last several years. I focus closely Seattle politics to extract examples of the politics of urban policy-making in the US.

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A System for the Direct Election of the Prime Minister has been promoted in Japan as a solution to political corruption and estrangement between the government and people. The adoption of the system would require revisions to the Japanese constitution. Yet the arguments and discussion about this system frequently lack a specific model for the Direct Election of the Prime Minister. This paper will present a specific model for consideration. Three issues must be considered upon presenting a specific model for the Direct Election of Prime Minister. The first issue to consider is the status and power of the symbolic Tenno system. There is criticism from those who consider Tenno the head of state, as a publicly elected Prime Minister would be likely to supplant Tenno in their view. We argue that a publicly elected Prime Minister does not necessarily have to contradict the Tenno system. The second issue to consider is the status, power, and structure of the Diet. A publicly elected Prime Minister would perform the function of integrating the will of the people. The Diet, meanwhile, would perform the function of reflecting the will of the people. If the Prime Minister failed to fulfill his role, the Diet would be able to pass a vote of non-confidence. To counteract this action, the Prime Minister would have the power to dissolve the Diet. The third issue to consider is the power and structure of the Cabinet. The structure of administrative power has to be altered to make the Cabinet more responsive. On the basis of the above and considerations of existing proposals for the revision of the constitution, this study will make specific proposals for amendments to the constitution and accompanying legislation to establish a System for the Direct Election of the Prime Minister.

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The "Act on Procedures for the Amendment of the Constitution of Japan" (hereafter "the Act") was revised on June 13, 2014. There had been some confusion under the Act before the revision, as the Act had failed to clearly define whether the voting age was 18 or 20. The revision to the Act solved this problem, but several new issues arose, in its place: (1) whether adults in Article 15, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution should be treated the same way as persons who have reached the age of adulthood in the Civil Code, (2) whether the lowering of the age of adulthood in the Civil Code harms consumers, (3) whether or not the age of full suffrage should be lowered to 18, and (4) whether the age of voting rights should be treated in the same way as the age of full suffrage. These issues will be examined in this paper.

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The Fourth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution in 1791. In no place in the Fourth Amendment does the term "warrant" appear. In interpretation of the Fourth Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court, the police require warrants to perform searches. A warrantless search is deemed reasonable only if it falls within a specific exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. The ninety percent of American adults who own cellphones todays carry with them digital records of nearly every aspect of their lives. Two hundred and twenty-three years have passed since the Fourth Amendment was added. In Riley v. California, the Supreme Court held that the police generally have no authorization to search digital information on cellphones seized from arrested individuals without warrants. While the Riley case is certain to be a subject further study, the American scholars who have studied the case so far have found several lessons for the interpretation of constitutional law. In this article, I would like to discuss this issue with a focus on the interpretation methods of the originalist Justice Scalia and the intra-textualist Akhil Amar, and the battle between Congress and the judicial approach. Justice Breyer provided six factors to overturn precedents. Daniel Farber shows a pragmatic approach.

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Sex crime is a serious problem. It causes mental pain for victims and social unrest. GPS monitoring and the official information disclosure system have become famous topics of discussion in Japan in the last few years. In this paper I raise three points that have yet to be discussed in this context: (1) a sex offender has a mental illness, requiring special treatment; (2) the judicial system needs a system for investigating an accused's individual traits in court to facilitate correctional treatment; (3) a period for the treatment of sex offenders in penal institutions must be ensured. In this paper, I mention a controversial mental disease called sex addiction and point out possible methods for treating sex offenders. Finally I discuss a new criminal justice system in Japan for repeat sex offenders and propose four ideas: (1) a system for pre-sentencing investigation, (2) treatment advice from judges, (3) a treatment system in penal institutions that allots ample time for the treatment of illness, (4) the assurance of enough time before probation.

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In today's age of globalization, it is not uncommon for evidence of a crime to be located overseas. Japanese investigators or prosecutors who encounter this circumstance must ask foreign governments to collect the evidence and send it to Japan. Yet not uncommonly, foreign authorities obtain evidence by means or procedures that would be unlawful under Japanese law. Under what standard or framework should the admissibility of that kind of evidence be decided in Japanese courts? The exclusion of evidence on the grounds of trivial procedural differences would thwart international collaboration in criminal investigations, to be sure. But should such evidence always be admitted? Are there exceptional cases where such evidence must be excluded? This note will first review the decisions in the Japanese courts and conclude that no concrete standard or framework has yet been formed to decide the admissibility of this kind of evidence. Second, this note will examine how courts in the United States address this issue. This examination will turn up two exceptional cases where evidence collected by foreign authorities must be excluded: one where the "joint venture" doctrine applies and the other where the conduct of foreign authorities "shocks the conscience." Finally, this note will examine the rationale of excluding evidence in those exceptional cases and argue that there is leeway for bringing those exceptions into Japanese jurisprudence.

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Mass tort litigation emerges when an identifiable event or product injures a large number of people or damages their property. Many people have brought class action lawsuits for claiming damages. The emergence of class certification hurdles for litigants since the end of 1990s has prompted a shift from the use of class action to the use of multidistrict litigation for the resolution of mass tort litigation in the federal courts. Without class certifications, parties are forced to look for other procedures for managing mass tort litigation. Consolidating most or all individual cases through multidistrict litigation may be feasible in mass tort litigation. The resulting efficiencies may be time and cost effective. In cases with large numbers of plaintiffs, the transferee court may consider appointing liaison or lead counsels to manage conflicts between parties. Another option is to order a bellwether trial to select a statistically significant sample of cases for trial and attempt to extrapolate results informally. This procedure can inform settlement negotiations of non-bellwether parties by providing guidance on how similar claims may fare before juries. But unlike the treatment of class actions, there are no safeguards for keeping the fairness, adequacy, or reasonableness of the settlements.

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According to Article 162 of the Civil Code, occupancy, namely, possession with the intention of holding as an owner, is required to acquire ownership by prescription. Yet, according to Article 185 of the said Code, a change to occupancy is approved even for possession without the intention of holding as an owner if the possession is newly commenced with the intention to own under a renewed authority. The ruling of the Supreme Court dated November 30, 1971 entered that inheritance could be a new title, but the ruling made no mention of whether or not a "change of nature of possession" is required. On this point, the ruling of the Osaka High Court dated November 12, 2013 approved a change to occupancy even if no change in the nature of possession is expressed. This writing seeks to review the preceding study and judicial precedents for new title and possession succession in terms of inheritance and to briefly examine the case of permission without a "change of nature of possession" when approving a successor change to occupancy by a new title.

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In recent years, use of franchise agreements is rapidly increasing between business owners and business operators, which has led to an increase in litigation due to conflict over the content and implementation of franchise contract agreements. Litigations and conflicts about what the contract authorises arise mainly from a master-servant relationship between the franchiser and the franchisee. To mitigate and balance the relationship requires application of a stricter law that requires dual acceptance of specific franchise contract standards. Specifically, the law needs to address the following two issues. First, there must be a legal interpretation of the dominant bargaining position. Second, there must be a clear description regarding violation of fair competition laws by the franchiser who makes a franchise agreement. This report considers the necessity of establishing such franchise laws to create contract standards for agreements between a franchisee and a franchiser. Consideration must be given to any precedents of the antitrust laws in franchise agreements. In addition, this report also considers the impact of mischief committed by part-time workers, namely, baito tero and the liability of such acts to the matters and parties of franchise agreements.

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Organic changes such as mergers and company splits may become inevitable choices for any type of corporation, even a small company. Yet conflict with creditors frequently arises. This article examines the effectiveness of applying business trusts to this field. Compared with a statutory trust in the U.S., which has juridical personality, a Japanese business trust is set up by a contract between a settlor and trustee. Several clauses of trust law are similar to the features of a corporation. Specifically,I refer to the Special Exception to Limited Liability Trust and the Trust Issuing Beneficiary Certificates. There are many cases where a company split may be prejudicial to creditors. To judge whether or not a split is prejudicial, the rationality of the transaction and the preservation of the asset value are both crucial issues to consider. This means that the value of the asset transferred is equivalent to the value of the debt, and that the value of the share exchange retained by the splitting company is secured against the distortion of cashflow and/or dilution by a capital increase. A Japanese business trust provides a possible solution to the above said problems. First, a Limited Liability Trust requires an equivalent balance of transferred asset and debt because the trustee must repay the debt only with the cashflow of the asset. Second, the clause on revocation of a fraudulent trust can circumvent a prejudicial scheme to a creditor of a splitting company. Because a creditor can request a court regardless of whether trustee has known the fact or not. Third, the duty of care requires the trustee to strictly administer the transferred asset, which contributes to the increase in the total value for the repayment service. Besides this article, I raise the idea that a trust in which a settlor himself acts as trustee is applicable to a company split. I focus on the features of a trust such as asset protection, the bankruptcy remote of the settlor and the fiduciary duty of the trustee. A trust can also supervise asset management better than a usual corporate scheme.A trust may be another feasible choice for a creditor and investor.

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The 121^<st> symposium of the Japanese Association of Law and Political Science was held at the Okayama University Shikayama campus from 14:00 to 17:30 on November 15,2014. The unifying theme of this symposium, the second symposium of the series, was "Prescriptions for Our Nation's Policy Challenges." The symposium discussed problems from the perspective of health policy and law, including regional medical care, medical care information, home health care, lifestyle-related diseases, oral hygiene, perinatal medical care, emergency medicine, infectious diseases countermeasures, and rising medical costs. The presenters were Dr.Manabu Morita(Okayama University), Dr. Tsuyoshi Awaya (Okayama University), Dr. Kazutaka Kojima (Chubu Gakuin University), and Dr. Koichi Setoyama (Osaka University).

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Poor dental health deteriorates Quality of Life. In addition, annual medical expense for dental diseases in 2010 were 2.6 trillion yen, second among common diseases such as malignant neoplasm (3.5 trillion yen), hypertension, (1.9 trillion yen), cerebrovascular disease (1.8 trillion yen), and diabetes mellitus (1.2 trillion yen). The enhancement of dental health is therefore also a financial issue in Japan. Recently, the government has started to prepare legislation for dental health promotion to reduce health inequality and resolve financial problems. In the last several decades, dental health has dramatically changed. Dental caries in children have been decreasing year by year and the proportion of the aged population with 20 teeth or more has grown. On the other hand, new findings providing evidence of a significant relationship between tooth loss and periodontal disease and systemic diseases have been presented in many epidemiological studies. Thus, dental services should be provided towards controlling oral infection and prolonging tooth survival for adult or geriatric populations. However, dental services still mainly consist of prosthetic treatment, probably due to the piece work payment system in Japan. Currently, dental services for subjects requiring long-term care or perioperative care are the most urgent need. Dental practitioners with limited experience of these situations, have begun to empirically accumulate knowledge and master dental techniques. Collaboration of all kinds of professionals such as legal experts, sociologists, politicians, economists as well as medical/dental providers will be needed in order to establish an adequate regime in dental services.

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Recently, visiting foreign countries, especially Asian countries to undergo organ transplantation has become a target of international criticism as "transplant tourism". Is it right to blame foreign patients who go to China or other parts of Asia, including Japanese patients, in order to undergo organ transplant? Is it right for them to be refused medical care after returning home? This phenomenon has been widely observed, especially in Japan. The Japanese medical establishment has adopted a kind of policy substantially forbidding patients to go to China or other parts of Asia for transplants, and also forbidding doctors to give transplant-related care to such patients. Even if the patients who go to China or elsewhere for organ transplants can be ethically blamed, is it justifiable for medical doctors to refuse to give them medical care? These issues are related but different, and should be discussed separately. For example, in the case of China, even though it's transplant policy has human rights problems with respect to death-row prisoners and Falun Gong practitioners, it does not seem right to indirectly put pressure from behind, so to speak, on patients who are in a weak position, in order to affirm the Japanese and WHO positions against Chinese transplant policy. The issue is whether it is good or not for patients in trouble to be sacrificed in order to realize a certain policy. Of course, in Japan, legally speaking, the issue may be subject to the so-called concept of "refusal of medical care". Article 19 of the Japanese Medical Practitioners Act prescribes that a doctor engaging in medical care must not refuse medical diagnosis and treatment without "a justifiable reason". It is, however, extremely doubtful whether the receipt of organ transplantation in China, or other parts of Asia constitutes "a justifiable reason". It seems that refusal of medical care to the patients who underwent organ transplants in China or other parts of Asia and returned to their countries presents a big problem of infringement of patients' human rights. The patients' human rights are an important interest of bioethics. Just as Chinese death-row prisoners, Falun Gong practitioners, etc. whose organs are extracted, and Southeast Asian donors who donate their organs for money due to poverty, have human rights, patients who go to foreign countries because they are not able to undergo organ transplants in their own countries also have human rights. If the former are weak under the power of the state, the latter are weak in the face of the power of the medical establishment. If the concept of "humanity" applies here, it also applies there. If ethics is used as a weapon for attacks, it may also be turned to the user of the weapon. Can we tell the patients to sit and wait for death? Leaving the patients in the lurch is not true ethics.

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This article takes up the issue of public health law, especially the meaning of the Communicable Disease Prevention Law of 1897 from the viewpoint of bureaucrats for the law and administration; Sensai Nagayo (1838-1902) and Shinpei Goto (1857-1929) who played an active part during prewar Japan. In Japan, public health laws were necessary to establish public health administration, especially by Nagayo and his colleagues who had gained some ideas of such administration from European models during the Meiji era. Nagayo is famous as the first director of the Central Sanitary Bureau and he had some idea about seimu-teki unyo (application on policies) of medical science and some associated sciences (e.g., science, engineering, meteorology, statistics, etc.). While he was engaged in the cholera pandemic from 1877, he focused on self-governing public health and medical police to make effective use of expert knowledge for public health. Consequently, he put forward that cooperation between government and citizens was important. Nagayo focused on establishing the administration, and his endeavor was taken over by Goto who proved worthy of Nagayo's expectations. Goto was born in Iwate prefecture and he started his life as a doctor in Nagoya in Aichi prefecture. He was interested in disease prevention in a similar manner to Nagayo, as well as medical treatment. So he drew up a document for the establishment of medical officers who would work to prevent diseases in Aichi prefecture. After he gave it Nagayo, he acquired a position in public health administration at the bureau in 1883. While Goto endeavored to perform practical work of public health administration, he published books, including kokka-eisei-genri (The Principles of the National Hygienic System) in 1889 and eisei-seido-ron (Hygiene System Theory) in 1890. From these books we can acquire knowledge of Goto's viewpoint on public health administration to prevent infectious diseases with effect through some words such as eisei-keisatsu (medical police) or sinji-sha (technical officers for public health and medicine), and so on. Goto understood it was necessary to respect local customs and to exercise power or authority for public health. And he talked about how it was important to use specialized knowledge which Shinji-sha or medical doctors had. He thought they could contribute to the legislation of laws using their knowledge to promote people's health. Goto had realized that policies on the specialized knowledge of shinji-sha or medical doctors had to be applied effectively to citizens to give shape to his idea, but he perceived that the responsibility to promote people's health at local level was not clear and that new laws and regulations were necessary. So he worked diligently on legistlation of a new law. This newly legislated law was the Communicable Disease Prevention Law of 1897 which was applied until the Act on Prevention of Infectious Disease and Medical Care for Patients Suffering Infectious Diseases of 1998 was enacted.

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This presentation addresses the issues of paternalism in the present medical setting and explores the prescription for the policy for the issues. Four fundamental concepts of Bioethics and four grounds of legal restriction on individual freedom and self-determination are reviewed. The cases and arguments based on paternalism are then identified. Moreover, the so-called Libertarian Paternalism based on the insights of behavioral economics presented by Professor Cass Sunstein is focused and the policy implication of the Nudge strategy is examined.

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