This paper provides the first-ever detailed analysis of the dispute resolution provisions contained in Japan's burgeoning international investment treaties (BITs and FTAs or EPAs). That development is also located in the context of Japan's inbound and outbound flows in foreign investment and the...

This paper addresses treaty-based investor-state arbitration (ISA) and other forms of investor-state dispute settlement. The topic has become particularly controversial for Australia, given its ongoing Free Trade Agreement negotiations with Japan – which is also considering joining...

This is the second paper in our trilogy focusing on persistent expansion in unsecured consumer lending in Japan, leading to increasing over-indebtedness and then major judicial and legislative responses particularly from 2006. The Japanese experience provides important lessons particularly in...

Australia is considering a full-scale Free Trade Agreement with Japan. This gives added importance to the trajectory of Japanese product safety regulations, and consumer law more generally. Generally, Japan has been dismantling ex ante regulation while strengthening private liability regimes,...

Mark Ramseyer has been a leading force in bringing to bear the methods of Law and Economics to an increasingly ambitious analysis of the Japanese legal and economic systems. He has deliberately assumed an iconoclastic position in debunking a number of widely-held beliefs about Japan. More...

The very first issue of this journal, published nearly 15 years ago, carried an article titled ‘Japanese Business Law in Cyberspace: Preliminary Usage Patterns for the ‘Japanese Law Links’ Webpage’ (Nottage, 1998). The development of the Internet as a research tool during this time, as...

The paper is based on my contributions to the East Asia Forum blog (and my partially overlapping "Japanese Law and the Asia Pacific" blog) drawing mainly on developments from the end of 2008 through to mid-2009. Many topics are important not only within Australia and Japan, but also potentially...