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The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
Colin Jones is a law professor living in Kyoto. He has written four books in Japanese and tries (tries!) to make the subject of Japanese law interesting to non-specialist readers. He is from a bunch of places, but mostly Canada.
For Colin P.A. Jones's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
As Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet rush to diminish the Bank of Japan’s bothersome independence, join the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations (sort of . . .), start pouring lovely, popular concrete before the summer House of Councilors elections and (sotto voce) maybe even ...
Within two hours of the massive earthquake that jolted Japan at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, the Japanese government received notice that an “Article 15 event” had occurred at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
Japan has a new hara. No, the nice couple down the hall didn't just have a baby; according to recent news, yet another form of harassment is supposedly becoming a social problem.
With Shinzo Abe having called Japan’s current Constitution “pathetic” (mittomonai) just a few days before taking charge of a government established under it, constitutional amendment seems likely to be on the agenda of his second go as prime minister. This should not surprise anyone, ...
I spent a beautiful Sunday in May of this year taking a national law exam. I did not pass and wasn’t expecting to: I could barely work up the energy for the 90-minute commute to the test venue in Osaka, let alone study for ...
Given the momentous fiscal and social problems Japan was facing even before Fukushima, even foreign residents — who can’t vote — may be wondering what on Earth Japan’s elected officials are doing to solve the nation’s many ills. “Not very much” is the most ...
A few weeks ago, as a panelist at a symposium on Japan’s accession to the Hague Convention on international child abduction, I found it hard to disguise my ire. One of the speakers was a lawyer opposed to Japan joining the convention, and who ...
One of my goals in writing for The Japan Times over the years has been to try to render the seemingly arcane functioning of the Japanese legal system a bit more comprehensible to non-Japanese, non-legal types. This involves a big assumption that I understand ...
Several months ago I made a bet with a friend about how the Hague Convention on international child abduction will be applied after Japan finishes implementing it through domestic legislation. My bet was this: If a Japanese court ever does order the return of ...
According to the Japanese Constitution, the Emperor is the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people. You could thus say it is symbolic that the Imperial household is now facing an unprecedented demographic crisis, one that may ultimately lead ...
The Way of Cake is mysterious and paradoxical. A master of the Way can make his neighbors feel they have filled themselves with tasty cake without ever cutting off a piece. The Way allows its disciple to step outside the boundaries of rational thought ...
A few months ago I met with some Western diplomats who were looking for information about Japanese law — in particular, an answer to the question, “Is parental child abduction a crime?” As international child abduction has become an increasingly sore point between Japan ...