Japan has faced widespread scrutiny for failing to properly address international parental child abduction involving its citizens. This book examines how and why Japan has come to have this tarnished image, its response, and how it might manage these disputes in the future. In particular, the book explores how Japan engages with international legal frameworks to manage international parental child abduction and what this means, in reality, for Japanese people and others who come under its wide umbrella. A focus of this examination is how the key international treaty, the Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, has fared since being introduced in Japan in 2014. Case studies of parental child abduction involving Japan are used throughout to illustrate the legal and social concepts discussed in the book. The struggles of both abducting and left-behind parents across fluid international borders reveal seismic social and philosophical shifts in Japan that continue to shape its legal landscape. This book will be a useful resource for students of Japanese Studies, Sociolegal Studies, Comparative Law and International Law.

This book examines the rights of the child using the global framework of the United Nations International Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989. Analysing both public and private international legal aspects, this cross-disciplinary text promotes a holistic understanding of the ongoing development of child law, children’s rights and the protection of the child. In-depth analyses of the following topic areas are included: Childhood in the digital age; Child labour; International parental child abduction; Inter-country adoption; Sexual exploitation; Children and armed conflict; and Indigenous children. These topics are contextualised with further chapters on the concept of childhood and children’s rights, the international legal framework in which the Convention operates and a substantive chapter on the Convention itself. This fourth edition has been updated and revised, including a new chapter dealing with issues arising from childhood in the age of unprecedented digital technological advancements; a crucial issue for childhood experiences in modern times. This edition also includes new case studies, recent legal developments in the field of international child law, and inclusion of broader scholarship to capture diverse views on international law and child law. The aim of this book is to provide the reader with an accessible, informed, critical and scholarly account of the international law framework relating to children. Drawing on a range of legal and other disciplines, this book remains a valuable resource for those in the course of study and research in this area.

Practitioners who deal with Japanese law have put great store by earlier editions of this major work, which systematically compares United States (US) law and Japanese law across all the major fields of legal practice. This fourth revised edition updates the work with the continuing dramatic changes in Japan’s legal system, including changes in criminal trials, disclosures to defense counsel of evidence to be used by the prosecution, the increasing use of recordings of interrogation sessions, and the impact of the indigenous movement for judicial reform. All chapters have been updated. In the fourth revised edition, which follows the same comparative structure as formerly, author Carl Goodman ̄ an internationally known authority with extensive experience in international practice, university teaching in both Japan and the US, and US government service — takes expert stock of new developments, including the following: • the Cabinet’s Declaration reinterpreting the Renunciation of War Clause in the Constitution and legislation following such reinterpretation; • interpretation of new rules for international jurisdiction of Japanese courts, including the new law’s effect on mirror image lawsuits filed in Japan; • the Supreme Court’s rulings dealing with the presumption of paternity, the waiting period for remarriage after divorce, and inheritance rights of “out of wedlock children”; • international and domestic Japanese child custody; • unanticipated consequences of criminal trials before the new mixed lay/professional panels; • debate concerning the Emperor’s announcement of his desired abdication; and • an update of Japan’s experiment with new graduate legal faculties. Although the alteration of the legal landscape in Japan is highly visible, the author does not hesitate to raise questions as to how far-reaching the changes really are. In almost every branch of the new Japanese legal practice he uncovers ways in which laws and judicial rulings are closely qualified and are likely to present challenges in any given case. He reminds the reader in each chapter that “what you see may not be what you get”. For this reason, and for its comprehensive coverage, this new edition is sure to gain new adherents as the best-informed practical guide for non-Japanese lawyers with dealings in Japan.

This report is a comprehensive look at the efforts of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to promote human rights around the world in 2012. It highlights the UK's human rights concerns in key countries and advances the promotion and protection of human rights as the focus of UK foreign policy. The publication is divided into nine sections: (1) Promoting and protecting human rights through the UN; (2) The human rights and democracy programme; (3) Promoting British values; (4) Human rights in safeguarding Britain's national security; (5) Human rights in promoting Britain's prosperity; (6) Human rights for British nationals overseas; (7) Working through a rules-based international system; (8) Promoting human rights in the overseas territories; (9) Human rights in 27 countries of concern. There is also a set of case studies, including DFID's work on economic and social rights, Egypt post-revolution, women and girls in India, Nigeria's response to terrorism, and the deployment of a UK team of experts to the Syrian border.