Journal of Japanese Law – J.Japan.L.

Together with the German-Japanese Association of Jurists, the Institute has published the J.Japan.L. since 2004. Offering a timely documentation and analysis of the myriad lines of development Japanese law in western-languages, the Journal is an international periodical serving the needs of individuals interested in Japanese law.

Aims and scope

The Journal aims to make all areas of the Japanese legal system accessible in a comprehensive and methodologically structured manner. The texts are generally authored in German and English, with articles occasionally also written in French. Authors include not only renowned scholars from Japan, Germany and elsewhere, but also legal practitioners, thus enabling a particularly wide spectrum of analysis.

Institutional framework

The Journal was founded in 1996 by Harald Baum, the Institute’s Japan reporter until 2020. Since that time, Ruth Effinowicz has been responsible for the Journal, which is a joint effort of the Institute and the German-Japanese Lawyers' Association (DJJV). It is published by Carl Heymanns and appears twice a year with a total of approximately 650 printed pages. The Journal is made available online by the Max Planck Institute in the Open Journal System. All articles are available free of charge (Free Access) on the Journal's website in PDF versions that are identical to the print version; as regards the last four issues, user access is initially limited to abstracts, reviews, reports and current information.

Editorial responsibility lies in the hands of Ruth Effinowicz (Hamburg), in collaboration with Harald Baum (Hamburg), Moritz Bälz (Frankfurt am Main), Marc Dernauer (Tōkyō) and Gabriele Koziol (Kyōto). The academic editors are supported by an advisory board made up of experts from all over the world. At the Institute, Caroline Meyer currently serves as assistant editor. Language editing performed at the Institute is regularly in the hands of John Foulks and Michael Friedman (English) as well as Anke Schild (German), with Janina Jentz responsible for the final editing and typesetting of articles. David Schröder-Micheel is responsible for the technical administration of the online edition.

Procedure

The Journal accepts contributions written in German, English and French. Contributions should be sent as a Microsoft Word document to the editorial office. Contributions for the “Articles” or “Conference” sections will be refereed by the editors and, if necessary, also by external experts. Generally, decisions will be notified within four weeks of submission. Contributions for these sections should be between 5,000 and 15,000 words of text (including footnotes).