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New Leap as a Global COE
- Deepen Our Research Activities -
As the 21st COE (Center of Excellence) selected and funded by the government in FY 2003, Waseda Institute for Corporation Law and Society (Creating New Legal System for Corporation and Society) has engaged in conducting research. At the end of March in 2008, we successfully ended its granted five-year period. Since then, aiming for the Global COE which is an extended program of the 21st COE, the Institute has deepened its research accomplishments and reconstituted the objects: creating a mature civil society and reconstructing legal systems for the mature civil society. No one surely knew whether our program was selected because a very few programs would be selected among the highest rated 21st COEs. However, with all the great efforts by all concerned, we were selected as the Global COE on June 18, 2008. The theme is ''Creating New Corporate Legal Systems for Mature Civil Society - Restructuring Legal Systems of Corporation, Finance, and Capital Market, and Asian Challenges''. It clearly articulates the Institute's will to continue expansively the objective of the 21st COE, ''to pursue what Japanese society should be by conducting historical and philosophical in-depth research on the fundamental structure of the system concerning urgent matters for Japan''.
We aims at ''understanding the real nature of the Western legal systems which have a long history since Roman law, without being constrained by the superficial form of statute laws, forming theories about the parts which the Western nations rely on experience, and developing a full-fledged theoretical model of the stock corporation system integrated with the capital market which causes disaster if mishandled. We overcome the lack of experience with intellect and theory, learn weakness in the Western models, and serve national interests of Asian countries with the same problems.'' Such point of views is our COE's vision.
In such vision, we share the purpose of pursuing corporate or financial/capital market legal systems which fully respect and enhance the values such as justice over freedom and distribution, fundamental human rights, culture, history, ideologies, attractive cities, and care for the vulnerable as well as coexist with such values. In other words, we aim at establishing a corporate society integrated with reconstruction of a civil society which truly respects human beings. The phrase in the theme, ''Creating New Corporate Legal Systems for Mature Civil Society'' shows our intentions as such. Japan has to design a corporate society with such a high goal which non-Western nations have never reached yet and should not be misled by a temporary success at the expense of the values which we respect.
Our Institute will continue various cross-sectoral research among different fields of law studies with the common focus on key words ''corporation, market, and civil society'', which is a kind of ambitious research never undertaken before. We were determined to promote research, aiming to understand the essence of the Western corporate legal systems for the mature society and even surpass Europe and the U.S. in logic. Otherwise, carrying no gene of failure in this field, Japan cannot deal with corporate legal systems integrated with capital markets which could cause disaster.
Creating theories means critical recognition of current situation as well as challenge to widely-accepted belief or notion. Waseda University has the founding sprits as ''academic independence'' and ''enterprising sprit'' and the founding philosophy of thinking with common people's view. So, this is the task Waseda must tackle forthright and to carry out the task is Waseda's responsibility to the society.
Our Institute aims to create jurisprudence as true social science integrated with history, ideology and sociology as well as fully understand the most updated theoretical conditions. Aiming to reconstruct a full-fledged comparative law studies close to the dynamics of society, we always show the opposing axis of a theory, and for shaping public opinion, show our presence based on solid studies. The time is over when only those involved with corporations gather to discuss corporate society or corporate legal systems. In that sense, we proudly announce that we have three special advisors for our Institute, Mr. Takayasu Okushima, former President of Waseda University and specialist of corporate law systems, Mr. Nobuyuki Idei, Former CEO of Sony and Chairman of Waseda University Board of Trustees, and Professor. Yoichi Higuchi, a leading constitutional law scholar in Japan and member of Institut de France. It symbolically shows the expansion of our Institute, giving tremendous power to us.
Trends, which mass media easily formed in Japanese society, are intellectually unfiltered in general. It seems the larger the number becomes, the more likely it is to be wrong. Our mission is quite large and we keenly feel our responsibility. Even though our Institute has such ambition stated before, there might be a large possibility that we make huge mistakes. We strongly hope the continuous support and suggestion by all the concerned.
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