Digital Commons Network^™

Insular Minorities: International Law’S Challenge To Japan’S Ethnic Homogeneity, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

The Japanese state has long promoted a view of itself, and the country, as ethnically homogeneous. Borrowing on critical race theory as developed in the United States, this paper first traces the numerous laws and policies that Japan has implemented to privilege ethnically Japanese people, and prejudice ethnic others. Next, the paper examines the role of international human rights law in challenging various edifices of the ethno-state, including amendments to legislation, and individual lawsuits. I conclude that international law has played a meaningful role in diversifying the protective ambit of Japanese law, but cannot provide all of the solutions that …

Muscular And Performance Fitness And The Incidence Of Type 2 Diabetes: Prospective Study Of Japanese Men, Susumu S. Sawada, I-Min Lee, Hisashi Naito, Koji Tsukamoto, Takashi Muto, Steven N. Blair

Faculty Publications

Background: Limited data are available on the relationship between muscular and performance fitness (MPF) and the incidence of type 2 diabetes.

Methods: A cohort of 3792 Japanese men completed a medical examination that included MPF and cardiorespiratory fitness tests. MPF index composite score was calculated using Z-scores from vertical jump, sit-ups, side step, and functional reach tests.

Results: The mean follow-up period was 187 months (15.6 years). There were 240 patients who developed type 2 diabetes during follow-up. Relative risks and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for incidence of diabetes across baseline quartiles of MPF index composite score were obtained using …

East Asia Institutionalizes: China, Japan And The Vogue For Free Trade, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

In the past decade, East Asia has taken steps to increase regional integration. This paper examines the vogue for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) currently raging in China and Japan. After mapping the regional links that knit East Asia together during the 1990s and 2000s, the focus then shifts to the specific trade agreements that China and Japan have signed. Both countries exhibit a particular FTA “style;” Japan has adopted a more orthodox and comprehensive approach to its treaties, while China has shown greater flexibility and gradualism when dealing with FTA partners. It is still unclear whether these efforts will lead …

Bilateral Regionalism: Paradoxes Of East Asian Integration, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

Like many other countries, China and Japan have recently signed a spate of Free Trade Agreements with countries in the Asia Pacific. This paper analyzes both countries’ styles of integration. While China favors multidisciplinary engagement (politics, security, economics), Japan is mainly interested in deepening economic integration with the countries in which it has already established transnational production lines. After analyzing individual FTAs signed by China and Japan, the paper ends by predicting that China’s multifaceted approach will promote greater integration in the Asia Pacific, and a more robust profile for China in regional affairs.

Note, Sisyphus In A Coal Mine: Responses To Slave Labor In Japan And The United States, Timothy Webster

Faculty Publications

This Note argues that the recent wave of litigation brought by former Chinese slave laborers, while important in its own right, highlights the need for a more comprehensive solution. Although ideally the Japanese Diet will devise its own response to the problem of compensation, the experiences arising from the Holocaust litigation in the United States provide a meaningful yardstick for comparison. In the United States, a large-scale settlement scheme followed, and finalized, numerous lawsuits brought by former forced and slave laborers from World War II Europe. The American response, though based on different circumstances, led to a multibillion-dollar fund that …

The Agathidinae (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Braconidae) Of Sakhalin And The Kuril Islands, Michael J. Sharkey, Daniel J. Bennett

Faculty Publications

Recent collecting on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, during joint U.S., Russian, and Japanese surveys known as the International Kuril and Sakhalin Island Projects, has resulted in range extensions for 10 species in the braconid subfamily Agathidinae and 17 new taxon records for islands in the Kuril chain, Sakhalin, and Moneron. In addition to a check list of the 19 species of Agathidinae presently known to occur on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, a generic key and updated keys to the species of Agathis Latreille, 1804, Bassus Fabricius, 1804, and Coccygidium Saussure, 1892 are provided for the region at large …

Introduction: The Context For Innovation In Japan, Comparative Competitive Aspects, Peter M. Gerhart

Faculty Publications

Introduction to Thomas J. Klitgarrd's "Context for the Innovation in Japan: Comparative Competitive Aspects and Some Practical Comments."

Book Review. United States Japan Foreign Trade, Jo Bell Whitlatch

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Explaining Policy Failure: Japan And The International Economy, 1969-1971, Robert C. Angel

Faculty Publications

This paper examines the determinants of Japan's most serious postwar blunder: failure to define and implement effective and timely countermeasures to deal with its change from deficit to surplus international monetary status during the 1969-1971 period. It concludes that intense bureaucratic compartmentalization and a lack of supra-ministerial leadership of national policy were key determinants of this failure, leaving Japan's political system dependent upon irresistible external pressure (gai-atsu), in this case from the United States, to define and force implementation of necessary policy changes. This critical but largely ignored episode illustrates a negative aspect of the traditional insulation of Japan's national …