Law and custom in Japan: Some comparative reflections

Compared to other industrial nations, Japan has extraordinarily low rates of crime and civil litigation. An examination of group and individual responsibility, of the pressures to conformity and the emphasis on conciliation and mediation, indicates the background to this unusual situation. An historical survey of the five strata of Japanese legal development - the Chinese, feudal, centralized feudal, Roman-law and Angle-American phases-provides a framework for understanding the contradictions. It suggests a curious intersection between a 'modern' legal framework and a 'traditional' attitude towards dispute settlement and remarkable parallels between customary Japanese and English law in the medieval period.