Pandemics and the Protection of Privacy and Personal Information: Issues with Regard to the Use and Protection of Information on the Basis of Improving Public Health in the Fight Against Infectious Diseases

In order to make use of the response to the new the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for pandemic countermeasures due to infectious diseases that may have a serious impact on the lives and health of the people, which may occur in the future, the handling of personal information and the protection of privacy necessary to ensure the effectiveness of countermeasures against infectious diseases will be examined. This paper intends to establish to comprehensively understand the systems for the collection and publication of information related to infectious diseases based on the Infectious Diseases Control Law, and to clarify the structure and issues of the current systems and mechanisms for the collection and management of information on infected persons

Pandemics and the Protection of Privacy and Personal Information: Issues concerning the Restriction on the Right to Privacy in Emergencies

This article focuses on issues which need to be considered in aiming to ensure both the effectiveness of infectious disease control measures and the protection of the right to privacy from the following perspectives. (1) Issues regarding the restriction of the right to privacy in emergency situations, including (i) the types of measures taken in emergency situations and issues with respect to the restriction of the right to privacy in emergency situations, (ii) the normalisation, constancy and fixation of exceptional measures in emergency situations, (iii) dual-use and use for purposes different from those originally intended, (iv) acquisition of secondary information and the emergence of unexpected situations (e.g. the applicability of body temperature to special care-required personal information and the acquisition of secondary information associated with the measurement of body temperature, and examples of mission creep); and (5) the need to respond to over-reaction without recognising the urgency of the situation. (2) Issues concerning privacy in countermeasures against infectious diseases, including (i) the procedures for requesting and disclosing personal information and privacy, (ii) the obligation to cooperate in active epidemiological investigations of specific patients and others based on the amended Infectious Diseases Control Act and restrictions on the right to privacy, (iii) the applicability of personal information concerning the acceptance of tests and other examinations as special care-required personal information, and (iv) the need to respond to over-reaction without recognising the urgency of the situation. (ii) the necessity of the implementation of information security management measures in relation to infectious disease countermeasures. (3) Issues concerning the use of technology for the purpose of countermeasures against infectious diseases and privacy, including (i) the use of GPS location information, (ii) considerations required to resolve concerns in the introduction and spread of contact confirmation applications, (iii) the acquisition of biometric information and the use of biometrics, and (iv) sewage epidemiological surveys and privacy (privacy of drainage)

Economic Performance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Environmental Management, and Supply Chains in India: A Comparison with Japan

Using input–output tables and data on wastes from the Japanese industrial sectors, we have provided empirical evidence that, in Japan environmental performance of their upstream suppliers contributes positively to the performance of their final product assembly firms or economic sectors. In this paper, we propose to investigate the same hypothesis for firms and other establishments in manufacturing and other sectors in India. Indian supplier firms that sell goods and services to their client assembler firms are not generally structured in the form of efficient supply chains as in advanced economies. So, the environmental performance of these suppliers may not have positive impacts on the performance of their assembler firms or economic sectors, but this is yet to be verified empirically

A Study on World Trade and Global Imbalance in the Inter-War Period : With a focus on trade and the balance of payments in Japan and China

The inter-war period was a time of technological innovation; it was also a time of significant global imbalance. In the inter-war period, the new technological innovation created a new trade imbalance. Active capital movement is necessary to keep the imbalance from hindering economic development. However, capital movement may often produce a new synergistic imbalance. This disproportion is termed global imbalance. Chapter 1 surveys the world economy in the inter-war period, Chapter 2 examines trade and its imbalance in the world during the inter-war period. I specifically concentrate on Japan and China\u27s trade by partner country and product based on the two countries\u27 statistics detailed in Chapter 3. I clarify the role the international capital movement played in dissolving this imbalance in Chapter 4. The following summarizes the most important conclusions in this paper: 1. The center of world trade moved from primary products to industrial products in the inter-war period, and the largest trade imbalances were between developed countries and recently developed countries. 2. Japan and China\u27s economic interdependence was strengthened as the result of developed countries\u27 economic bloc policies and rapid industrialization in Japan and China. 3. The international capital movement was more favorable in the first half of the interwar period. Capital flight worsened the imbalance in the second half. 4. In Asia, the foreign investment and FDI of Japan played an important role in establishing infrastructure and developing a textile industry in China and others regions

Market-centered Corporate Governance in Prewar Japan and Today

This paper examines the various features of major Japanese companies and Japan\u27s corporate governance in the interwar period from about 1920 to 1940. It also investigates the establishment background of present corporate governance. First, representative companies (except for banks) are discussed in Section 1 andrepresentative banks in Section 2. Of those companies and banks, I select salient examples and analyze those businesses and their entire financial information in great detail in Section 3. I explore their securities investments concerning further restricted companies in Section 4. I examine the entire financial and securities market during that time in Section 5. Section 6 approaches the actual condition and role of the life insurance company as an institutional investor. The life insurance company\u27s investments made a positive impact on companies and banks at the time through the financial and securities market. Current Japanese corporate governance is often characterized as an insider type of corporate governance. The origin of such corporate governance, or today\u27s business group, was often believed to result from past Japanese zaibatsu rule. However, the analysis in this paper shows that the financial and securities market had a very large role in raising and managing capital for major companies and banks in the interwar period. In this meaning, Japanese corporate governance in the interwar period was market-centered and very similar to those of the U.S. and Britain today. Such a feature was remarkable in the emerging zaibatsu and the independent companies. The vertical and integrated control and controlled relations made the holding company reach the top were formed in major zaibatsu is certain. Even in this case, the market\u27s role was not small, and the governance in major zaibatsu was never dominant. Moreover, regarding the macro capital flow, the role of securities, not bank deposits, wasremarkably important. The development of such market-centered corporate governance was one of the most important factors that supported active Japanese foreign investment in the prewar period and brought about economic development, as my another paper will examine

Foreign Direct Investment in the Inter-war Period and Japanese Investment in China

I examined the development history of Japanese companies focusing on corporate governance and foreign investment. In this paper, I survey the features of the global economic system in the inter-war period with a focus on foreign investment and the position and role of Japanese companies in this system. I have already examined East Asia occupying an overwhelming position in Japanese overseas investment. In this paper, I target China which was one of the most important East Asian countries; the focus is on China except Manchuria because many advanced countries fiercely competed in China. The inter-war period was a time when Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was taking a more and more important role in substitution for portfolio investment in foreign investment. Such a change was not yet at all big in Asia. The change was just beginning. Even in China, which for a long time rejected foreign capital, FDI finally began to develop after the Chinese Revolution of 1911. In China, the cotton spinning industry began to develop. The modern company and financial institutions which supported it with various forms were born and led the process. In this paper, I examined the management of Japanese and Chinese cotton spinning companies in the inter-war period with greater detail on China, and highlighted the differences in the management between the two countries\u27 companies. Whereas Japanese companies developed market-centered corporate governance, Chinese companies maintained the indirect finance model mainly through the use of short-term funds and corporate governance based on a state and a family. This difference became the important factor in creating the difference in competitiveness between the two countries\u27 companies