Levin on Haley on Japanese Legal History

Mark Levin, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawai'i at Ma-noa, has posted Continuities of Legal Consciousness: Professor John Haley’s Writings On Twelve Hundred Years of Japanese Legal History. Here’s the abstract:

In Authority Without Power: Law and the Japanese Paradox, Professor John Haley stated, “One cannot understand the present without an appreciation of the past and the role of present perceptions of that past. To appreciate the historical dynamics of Japan’s legal tradition is vital both to comprehend more fully the present as well as to predict more accurately the future.”

Working from Professor Haley’s division of the historical process into four major temporal elements — Nara, Kamakura, Tokugawa, and Meiji, this review piece analyzes how aspects of the historical puzzle are evidenced in Japanese legal dynamics today and assessing what we may be able to imagine coming in Japan’s future.