Preface by the editors

In 2016, the Journal of Japanese Law celebrated its 20th anniversary. The Journal is jointly published by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (MPI) and the German-Japanese Association of Jurists (DJJV) and aims to serve the needs of scholars, judges and legal practitioners who are interested in Japanese law. Its goal is to make all areas of the Japanese legal system accessible in a comprehensive and methodologically structured manner. At present the Journal is the world’s only westernlanguage publication which offers a regular and timely documentation and analysis of the myriad lines of development in Japanese law.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Journal, the MPI and the DJJV initiated two academic conferences aimed at an up-to-date comparison of German and Japanese law in selected areas of law which are of special comparative interest. The first was convened in Japan and the second in Germany. The Japanese conference focused on “Information Duties under Japanese and German Private Law”. It was jointly organized by the DJJV, the MPI, the Chūō University in Tōkyō, and the Tōkyō office of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and took place on 23 September 2016 in Tōkyō at the German Cultural Centre. This Special Edition of the Journal presents the contributions to this symposium in an updated and edited version for an international readership.

[Excerpt from the Foreword]