Department of East Asian Law

Deutsch

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

Contact

FernUniversität in Hagen, Universitätsstraße 11, 58097 Hagen
Building 3, 1st floor, rooms E08 & E09 / postal box 7
Phone: +49 2331 987-4527
Phone consultation hours: Mon., Tue. & Thu.: 2pm – 5pm and by appointment (DE, EN, JPN).
 

Latest News 2026

Koreastudierende GruppenbildFoto: FernUniversität in Hagen

First Cohort of Students in Korean Law

The winter semester of 2025/26 saw the first cohort of 19 students start their studies in the graduate programme Foundations of Korean Law. A combination of hybrid events and office hours ensured that they were quickly able to get to know each other and the teaching team. The first tests and exams have been completed, but new enrolments are still possible at any time.

Guest Lecture by Prof Tomoko Utsumi on Legislation on Sex Offences in Japan

Since the 1990s, both jurisprudence and society in Japan have called for far-reaching reforms to protect sexual self-determination. But to what extent have these demands been translated into today's Japanese criminal law code? In her lecture on 30. January 2026, Prof Tomoko Utsumi (Yokohama National University) gave a comprehensive overview of developments over the last few decades and examined the implementation of recent legal amendments within the context of the Japanese constitutional state.

Inaugural Lecture by our Guest Professor Byung-Jun Lee on ‘Corona in Contract Law’

The COVID-19-pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to contract law around the world. Sudden disruptions of contractual performance and the need for contractual readjustments dominated legal practice. In his lecture on 10. January 2026, held at the Leipzig campus and via Zoom, Prof Byung-Jun Lee examined the differing legal responses to pandemic-related contractual issues in Korea and Germany and drew both legal and practical conclusions.

Guest Lecture on the Work of a Lawyer in German-Japanese Legal Relations

On 17. December 2025, Mr Hironaga Kaneko (Vice President of the German-Japanese Lawyers’ Association and partner at Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek) delivered the guest lecture Practice reports - The Work of a lawyer in German-Japanese legal relations.

Third-party Funding Success in Freiraum 2026

Prof Weitzdörfer has successfully secured €362,000 in funding from the 'Freiraum' initiative of the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education for the development of the interdisciplinary module Existential Risks to Humanity. The project builds on several years of research activities at the University of Cambridge. Building on theoretical foundations, students have the opportunity to gain experience in global risk management.

Successful Read Japan Project 2025 Application

The department of East Asian Law has successfully applied for the Read Japan Project 2025, which is administered by the Tokyo Foundation with financial support from the Nippon foundation. The department's specialised library will now be supplemented by 64 English-language titles on Japanese politics, economics and society worth approximately €5,000, which will be a valuable addition to our existing range of materials on Japanese law.

Award of Visiting Professorship from Korea

Prof Weitzdörfer has successfully secured a five-figure grant through the competitive funding programme Freiraum Forschung für Neuberufene to finance a visiting professorship from Korea. From January 2026 to January 2027, Prof Dr Byung-Jun Lee, a distinguished civil law scholar at Korea University, will add his extensive experience and knowledge to the department's research and teaching on Korean law. This is 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 Vice President for research.

Survey Results on Japanese Law

We are delighted to announce the evaluation results for the LLM elective module 55311. The last three semesters (WS 2023/24 to WS 2024/25) have seen a steady increase in satisfaction: 100% of graduates were ‘very satisfied’ with the teaching staff, while 66% were ‘very satisfied’ and 33% ‘rather satisfied’ with the module overall. Response rates of up to 83% of students have enabled us to make improvements in all areas and highlight the continued interest in Japanese law.​​​

New Distance Learning Programme in Korean Law

We are pleased to announce the first university degree in Korean law outside of East Asia: the new graduate programme ‘Foundations of Korean Law’ will start in the summer semester of 2025. Registrations are now open.

Intercultural Dialogue with Japanese Exchange Students

On 6 February 2025, the Department of East Asian Law co-organised an intercultural dialogue with students from Waseda University at Hagen University’s 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 graduate programmes on Korean and Taiwanese law, the Department of Japanese Law has been renamed the Department of East Asian Law as of 1 February 2025. This marks the latest stage in the thirty-five-year history of East Asian Law as a field of study at Hagen University, which began in 1990 as a specialisation in the study and research of Japanese Law and was established as a full-fledged Institute for Japanese Law in 2000. At the same time, an English-language website was launched, which mirrors the content of the German site.

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 Hagen University's 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 Hagen University 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 graduate programme 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 Hagen University's Berlin campus.

Obituary for Professor 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 (Hagen University) 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 Graduate Programme

The graduate 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 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 Hans-Peter Marutschke. Since September 2020, ​​​Prof Julius Weitzdörfer LLB BA DiplJur DrJur MA (Cantab) has been working as Junior Professor of East Asian Law at Hagen University. 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, most notably the newly developed graduate programmes ​​​​​Foundations of Japanese Law and Foundations of Korean Law and the soon to be launched graduate programmes Foundations of Taiwanese Law and Existential Risks to Humanity, all four of which are the first degree programmes of their kind. Furthermore, an elective module called ​Introduction to Japanese Law has been integrated into the undergraduate Master of Laws (LLM) programme at Hagen University, 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 graduate 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.

12.02.2026