\u3ci\u3eJapan\u27s Commission on the Constitution: The Final Report\u3c/i\u3e, translated and edited by John M. Maki (1980)

The Final Report, which has been well translated and intelligently edited by John M. Maki, demonstrates to an almost excruciating extent this concern for fairness and balance. The first three parts of the Report chronicle the creation, structure, procedure, and central issues of the Commission\u27s work. In doing so, they catalog issues and positions and explain the mechanics of the Commission, but do little else. For those interested in the substantive views espoused, Part Four, The Opinions of the Commissioners, will hold the most interest

Stealth Activism: Norm Formation by Japanese Courts

The Article focuses on the political and social roles of the Japanese Supreme Court to the society. It argues with the remarks made by law professors John O. Haley and David S. Law about the Japanese fiduciary. It outlines the judicial decisions of court cases in various areas including employment, divorce and protection against discrimination

The Evolution of Relational Property Rights: A Case of Chinese Rural Land Reform

The most notable, or at least the most noted, form of property evolution has been the transfer of exclusive rights from collectives to individuals and vice versa, such as the farm collectivization in Soviet Union and the establishment of the People’s Communes in Mao’s China and their reversals. Such radical moments, however, constitute only a small part of history. For the most part, property rights evolve quietly and incrementally, which is hard to explain if we take exclusive rights as the core of property, or, to put it more generally, if we are focusing solely on the question of who owns the things. To describe the evolution of property rights in China, we employ the concept of relational property. It is a concept that is heavily influenced by Joseph William Singer’s “social relations model” and Ian Macneil’s “relational contract” and, in particular, their emphasis on the determinative role of social relations in the construction of property and contract rights. The bundle of sticks metaphor is at the heart of relational property because it recognizes that property rights can be, and often are, disaggregated as they adapt to changing social, economic, and technological demands. As we show in the context of the reform of Chinese rural land, the combination of the metaphor of separable interests — the sticks in the bundle — and the dependence of property interests on social relationships can explain the evolution of property rights more accurately than a perspective that stresses a single central meaning of property

The Evolution of Relational Property Rights: A Case of Chinese Rural Land Reform

The most notable, or at least the most noted, form of property evolution has been the transfer of exclusive rights from collectives to individuals and vice versa, such as the farm collectivization in Soviet Union and the establishment of the People’s Communes in Mao’s China and their reversals. Such radical moments, however, constitute only a small part of history. For the most part, property rights evolve quietly and incrementally, which is hard to explain if we take exclusive rights as the core of property, or, to put it more generally, if we are focusing solely on the question of who owns the things. To describe the evolution of property rights in China, we employ the concept of relational property. It is a concept that is heavily influenced by Joseph William Singer’s “social relations model” and Ian Macneil’s “relational contract” and, in particular, their emphasis on the determinative role of social relations in the construction of property and contract rights. The bundle of sticks metaphor is at the heart of relational property because it recognizes that property rights can be, and often are, disaggregated as they adapt to changing social, economic, and technological demands. As we show in the context of the reform of Chinese rural land, the combination of the metaphor of separable interests — the sticks in the bundle — and the dependence of property interests on social relationships can explain the evolution of property rights more accurately than a perspective that stresses a single central meaning of property