Ressource pédagogique : Hirofumi Oguri - Inseparable Pairs?: Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Society of International Law, 1880-1914

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The reception of European international law in the Meiji era (1868-1912) in Japan is characterised as full of ‘pragmatism’, based on the primary foreign policy adopted by the government. For modernisation of state system, the government employed hundreds of foreigners as teachers and advisers (Oyatoi Gaikokujin; employed foreigner specialists) in almost all fields. In legal affairs Gustave Emile Boissonade de Fontarabie (1876-1879) and Karl Roesler (1878-1893) are well-known. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hired Oyatoi Gaikokujin as legal advisers, while recognizing the importance of human resource development of Japanese international lawyers. The Ministry took the initiative in establishing Kokusaiho Gakkai (Japanese Society of International Law) in March 1897. As studied so far, the Ministry and the Society contributed capacity-building of international legal scholars who later invented Japanese conceptions of international law such as the Greater East Asian Sphere that justified Japanese aggression in East Asia. However, studies on institutions, specifically on the role of legal advisers in the Ministry and the process of founding the academic society, remain to be discussed. In my presentation, with a particular focus on Henry Willard Denison (1880-1914) as a legal adviser at the Ministry, I will explore a plurality of the actors involved in the process and whether there was tension or cooperation between legal advisers in the Ministry and Japanese scholars in academia.

"Domaine(s)" et indice(s) Dewey

• Droit international (341)

Thème(s)