Full Description
This volume offers the first systematic account of Japanese international legal theory, tracing more than a century of scholarship across thirteen influential thinkers. Edited by leading Japanese scholars, it examines how theorists working outside international law's Western centre developed sophisticated frameworks to navigate tensions between Western modernity and their own legal and intellectual traditions. The book's central contribution proposes "conversation"—a mode of sustained engagement that respects irreducible differences between legal cultures—as an alternative to "dialogue," which often reinforces hierarchy by presuming full reconciliation of perspectives. Through detailed intellectual biographies spanning six historical periods, contributors show how Japanese scholars strategically adopted legal positivism, articulated transcivilizational approaches, and advanced concepts of normative multilateralism. Aimed at scholars of international law, legal theory, and comparative traditions, the volume demonstrates that the field's future depends on genuinely reciprocal, coexisting perspectives.
Contents
Introduction - Meguro Maiko and Negishi Yota
1 SENGA Tsurutaro: Positivism against Civilizational Eurocentrism in International Law - TOYODA Tetsuya
2 YOKOTA Kisaburo: Between Value-Neutrality, and Internationalist, Pacifist, and Democratic Ideals - TANAKA Hinako
3 TAOKA Ryoichi: Doctor eximius as an steadfast origin point in Japanese tradition - FUKUSHIMA Ryoshi
4 YASUI Kaoru: From academic to activist - YAMASHITA Tomoko
5 TANAKA Kotaro: An unparalleled jurist with natural law tradition - OGURI Hirofumi
6 TABATA Shigejiro: Japan's leading authority in the 20th century on international law and its history - KANETAKE Machiko
7 SOGAWA Takeo: Anti-positivist and activist scholar - NISHI Taira
8 YAMAMOTO Soji: Thorough positivist in Japanese international law society - MORITA Akio
9 ISHIMOTO Yasuo: The 'structural transformation' of international law - WANI Kentaro
10 MATSUI Yoshiro: The social science of international law - KODERA Satoshi
11 KOTERA Akira: Struggle of international legal scholars living on the 'periphery' of international law - MEGURO Maiko
12 ONUMA Yasuaki: A transcivilisationalist international lawyer- KAKU Shun
13 MOGAMI Toshiki: An unfrenzied normative realist - NEGISHI Yota
