Debate over the concept of the competent lawyer in Japan “What skills and attitudes does Japanese society expect from lawyers?”

It has been 2 years since legal education reform started in Japan. The Justice System Reform Council envisioned the 21st century lawyer as a lawyer who “not only has highly developed professional legal knowledge but also has acquired strong legal ethics based on wide cultural knowledge and rich humanity” (Recommendations of the Justice System Reform Council—For a Justice System to Support Japan in the 21st Century—(June 21, 2001)). Since then, all interested parties have been trying to specify the qualifications needed to be a competent lawyer: What lawyering skills and professional attitudes does Japanese society expect from lawyers; how can they be acquired; and how can they be examined or evaluated? In this paper, I first briefly describe the traditional legal training system and the traditional image of the lawyer in Japan. Second, I look at the history of legal training system reform; summarize images of the lawyer each that interested party envisions, and review the current status of the reform. Then, I explore the optimum way to reinforce the quality and quantity of the legal profession in Japan.     

U.S. Military Fatalities in Iraq: Year 3

With year four of the Iraq War under way, this article focuses on the sources, patterns, and effects of fatalities. It shows how trends in fatalities correlate with nine distinct phases since the war's inception and analyzes in detail the last two, which prevailed during year 3, ending March 19, 2006: the Iraqi election cycle (which encompassed the election of the National Assembly, establishment of the transnational government, drafting of the Constitution, approval of the Constitution, and the election of parliament) and the start of U.S. efforts to disengage from the conflict. U.S. intentions to scale down its involvement while increasing Iraqi self-sufficiency have been hampered by the persistence of fatalities inflicted by the insurgency, which bifurcated its efforts during year 3, matching hostilities toward U.S. troops with organized civil strife involving Iraqis. Ultimately, only the Iraqi people and their new government can defeat the insurgency and bring U.S. involvement in the war to an end.     

Containing Pakistan: Engaging the Raja-Mandala in South-Central Asia

Recent events have refocused attention on Pakistan's role as an epicenter of global Islamist terror and called into question Islamabad's reliability as an ally in the fight against a resurgent Taliban and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Pakistan in fact suffers from abiding structural pathologies that make it a questionable Western ally at best. In its foreign policy toward Pakistan, the United States would do well to consider the ancient Indian geopolitical concept of the raja-mandala (“ruler circle”), which seeks to balance opposing spheres of influence and exploit the tensions between them. This concept provides the key to containing and eventually eliminating South-Central Asian terror.     

Countering Aggressive Rising Powers: A Clash of Strategic Cultures

The United States has to contend with rising powers ranging from the prc, which is already an economic and political great power and potentially a military threat, to Al Qaeda and the network of Islamist terror organizations, whose means to power remain limited but whose will to power and aggression are great. In the middle are states that already or may soon possess nuclear weapons. Each of these powers has its own “strategic culture” that affects its decision-making, and attention needs to be paid to how the strategic habits of today's rising and aggressive powers might intersect with U.S. strategy.     

Reconstructing ‘conflict of interest’ in financial markets: Private management, public challenges, future prospects

Following widespread criticism of financial market (self-)regulation, there is a shift in regulatory mood, explored here with reference to evolving conceptions of conflict of interest. The pre-crisis distinction between conflict of interest (normal, manageable) and its exploitation (unacceptable, legally actionable) has become somewhat eroded, as exemplified by the SEC’s 2010 civil fraud action against investment bank Goldman Sachs. However the settlement of that case on the basis of ‘mistake’ left many questions unanswered: about the meaning(s) of conflict of interest, about managerial mistake versus exploitative intent in administrative/civil cases and equally about the potential for action under criminal law. Looking forward, a judgement of the European Court of Justice on insider trading – concerning a rebuttable assumption of intent – could be taken as a template for ‘drawing the line’ on conflict of interest. Acting on the basis of informational asymmetry could be taken as an indicator of intent and serious wrongdoing unless financial market actors can demonstrate otherwise.