Department of East Asian Law

Deutsch

Director: Jun-Prof Dr Julius Weitzdörfer LLB BA DiplJur MA (Cantab)

Contact

FernUniversität in Hagen, Universitätsstraße 11, 58097 Hagen

Building 3, 1st floor, rooms E08 & E09

Email: japanrecht / eastasianlaw

Phone: +49 2331 987-4527

Phone consultation hours: Mon. & Tue.: 9am – 4pm & Thu. 9am – 3pm and by appointment (DE, EN, JPN).

 

Latest News 2025

Byung-Jun LeePhoto: Korea University

Award of visiting professorship from Korea

Under the competitive funding programme Freiraum Forschung für Neuberufene, Prof. Weitzdörfer has successfully secured a five-figure grant for a visiting professorship from Korea. Prof. Dr. Byung-Jun Lee, a renowned civil law scholar at Korea University, will enrich the department's research and teaching on Korean law during the coming academic year 2025/26. This constitutes the first time the grant has been awarded to a member of the Law Faculty and we express our sincerest gratitude to all panel members, especially the pro-rector for research.

Survey Results to Japanese Law

We are very pleased with the evaluation results for the LLM elective module 55311: In a steady trend of improvement over the last three semesters (WS 2023/24 to WS 2024/25), a full 100% of graduates were ‘very satisfied’ with the teaching staff; with the module as a whole, 66% were ‘very satisfied’ and 33% ‘rather satisfied’. The evaluation response rates of up to 83% of students have enabled us to make improvements in all areas and underscore the unbroken interest in Japanese law.

New Distance Learning Programme in Korean Law

As the first university degree in Korean law outside of East Asia, the new executive education programme ‘Foundations of Korean Law’ will start in the summer semester of 2025. Registrations are now open.

Intercultural Dialogue with Japanese Exchange Students

On 06 February 2025, the department of East Asian Law co-organised an intercultural dialogue with students from Waseda University at the University of Hagen Campus Centre in Leipzig. The event was attended by department staff member Wataru Ono and co-organised by Prof. Weitzdörfer, who, as an alumnus of Waseda University, was particularly pleased to be involved in this exchange for the third time.

New Department Name and English-language Website

In light of the new executive education programmes on Korean and Taiwanese law, the Department of Japanese Law has been renamed the Department of East Asian Law as of 01 February 2025. This is the latest development in the thirty-five-year history of Japanese Law as a field of study at the University of Hagen, originally founded in 1990 as a specialisation on study and research of Japanese Law and in 2000 as an Institute for Japanese Law. On the same occasion, an English-language website has been set up, which covers all content of the German one.

Guest Lecture on Criminal Policy in Japan and DJJV Get-Together

From 10 to 11 November 2024, the department's team met for its fourth intensive workshop at the University of Hagen campus location in Leipzig. On 11 November, Prof. Tomoko Utsumi (Yokohama National University, currently University of Halle) delivered a guest lecture on the topic of “Criminal Policy in Japan.” The German-Japanese Lawyers’ Association (DJJV) subsequently hosted a get-together.

Julius Weitzdörfer in an Interview with Die Zeit (German Newspaper)

In late September 2024, at the biennial conference of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, Prof. Weitzdörfer was interviewed by Die Zeit on research in the field of existential risk.

Julius Weitzdörfer in an Interview with Deutschlandfunk (German Radio)

In late September 2024, at the biennial conference of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, Prof. Weitzdörfer talked about the topic of existential risks with Deutschlandfunk.

Julius Weitzdörfer in Interviews with Allgemeine Zeitung (German Newspaper)

In the editions of 24 and 30 July 2024 as well as 8 June 2025, Prof. Weitzdörfer was interviewed about remand pre-trial detention in Japan. The background was a case of alleged rape involving a Japanese football player from the German national division.

Guest Lecture on the Future of Democracy and Human Rights in East Asia

On 11 July 2024, multiple times Nobel Peace Price-nominated Hong Kong dissident Nathan Law met Prof. Weitzdörfer for a public discussion. This was an online event jointly organised by the Dimitris-Tsatsos-Institute for European Constitutional Studies and the Junior Professorship of East Asian Law.

Partnership Agreement with Dōshisha Law School Kyōto

In June 2024, a partnership agreement between the Faculty of Law at the University of Hagen and the Dōshisha Law School in Kyōto, initiated by Prof. Weitzdörfer, came into effect. This agreement facilitates reciprocal research and study trips, the exchange of students and teaching materials, as well as joint events.

The Department’s Work on Taiwanese Law

During a research trip to Taiwan in May 2024, Prof. Weitzdörfer and Leonard Kosub from the department's team successfully recruited a dozen Taiwanese experts to contribute study material for the forthcoming executive education program on Taiwanese law over the course of thirteen meetings at five universities and at the German Institute in Taipei.

Student Study Trip to Japanese Judicial Institutions

At the end of March 2024, Prof. Weitzdörfer accompanied a study trip organised by Prof. Henning Rosenau (Halle). They visited more than a dozen institutions throughout Japan, including the National Diet, courts, the police headquarters, and Japan's largest prison. Study trips from Hagen to Japan have enjoyed great popularity in the past, and will be offered again in identical form soon.

Third Intensive Workshop of the Department of Japanese Law

From 01 to 03 March 2024, the team of the department met for its third intensive workshop on the University of Hagen's Berlin campus.

Obituary for Professor Dr Dr hc Masasuke Ishibe

The Department of Japanese Law mourns the loss of an outstanding Japanese legal scholar. An obituary was published in ZJapanR No. 57 (2024).

Guest Lecture on the Reforms of the Law of Obligations in Japan and Germany

The guest lecture “Reforms of the Law of Obligations in Japan and Germany: A Comparative Law Retrospective” by Prof. Andreas Bergmann (FernUniversität in Hagen) and Prof. Keizō Yamamoto (Kyōto University) on 19 January 2024 was moderated by Dr Anna Katharina Suzuki-Klasen and Prof. Weitzdörfer.

Relaunch of the Foundations of Japanese Law Executive Education Programme

The executive education programme Foundations of Japanese Law was relaunched with updated and augmented course material at the beginning of January 2024.

Research Activities of the Department

Information on the department’s research activities from 1996 to 2023 can be found here.

Development of the Department

The Department of East Asian Law can look back on a rich 35-year history. Its predecessor was established in 1990 at the chair of ​​​​Prof Dr Dr hc Eisenhardt as a specialisation in the study and research of Japanese law. The year 2000 saw the establishment of a separate Institute for Japanese Law. In 2016, this was integrated into the Institute for International Legal Relations as the Department of Japanese Law and headed by Prof Dr Hans-Peter Marutschke. Since September 2020, ​​​Prof Dr Julius Weitzdörfer LLB BA Dipl-Jur MA (Cantab) has been working as Junior Professor of East Asian Law at the University of Hagen. Under his leadership, the department continues to evolve and modernise.

​​​​​The tasks of the department are wide-ranging. One key focus is the development and expansion of degree programmes in East Asian law. First and foremost is the ​​​​​Foundations of Japanese Law programme, which is organised as an executive education programme in accordance with § 62 HG NRW. Furthermore, an elective module called ​Introduction to Japanese Law has been integrated into the undergraduate Master of Laws (LLM) programme at the University of Hagen, which is offered by the department every semester. In addition to teaching and supervising these, the department has developed its own ​​​​​research focus, which has gained recognition in Germany and Japan.

The department maintains contacts with the law faculties and law schools of all the important state and private universities in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. This network has been made possible by the involvement of numerous well-known Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese professors in the degree programmes on East Asian law and in various research projects. A formal cooperation with the Dōshisha Law School was established in 2024. Similar collaborations are being prepared with the aim of enabling short study trips to Korea and Taiwan for participants in the respective executive education programme. In addition, students from these universities will be offered a platform for the comparative study of German law and for the preparation of short study visits to Germany.

11.08.2025