The biggest victim of a leather products trade dispute between Japan and the European Union may turn out to be the hisabetsu buraku — the ostracized hamlets where many of Japan's social outcasts earn a living tanning leather.
The 15-nation EU filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization earlier this month over Japan's leather-import restrictions. The so-called tariff-quota system protects the weak domestic leather industry from foreign competition.
The system allows Japan to put quotas on imported products that are subject to relatively low tariff rates. Imports that exceed those quotas face prohibitively high tariffs, and as a result lose much of their competitiveness in the lucrative Japanese market.