ERC Consolidator Grant Project (ERC-2018-COG 819892)

Law Without Mercy: Japanese Courts-Martial and Military Courts During the Asia-Pacific War, 1937-45

I. Project Summary

Japan fought the war over East and Southeast Asia between 1937 and 1945 not only in the theatres of war, but with equal harshness in the courtrooms of military justice. Wherever Japanese soldiers went, judge-advocates followed, meeting out stern justice to soldiers, civilians and enemy soldiers alike. The system of courts-martial and military courts throughout East and Southeast Asia served three purposes: regulate violence and channel it efficiently to serve Japan’s war goals; deter the civilian population and coerce it into following Japan’s ‘New Order’ in East Asia; and finally, convince domestic and international audiences that Japan’s war was not only legitimate, but also ‘legal’. Yet, despite formal pretences, verdicts of civilians routinely ended in execution or harsh imprisonment. As such, the violence of the justice system mirrored the brutality of the war in general.

Despite the highly contentious nature of the war even today, a systematic studies of mass violence during the Asia-Pacific War are sorely lacking. ‘Law without Mercy’ uses military justice as focal point and as a highly precise lens for studying the various figurations of violence during the war. It is pioneering in analysing legal practices as an integral part of this violence and facilitator for its routinisation and escalation on the battlefield and in the occupied territories. And finally, it opens up a wholly new and large body of sources (primarily court judgments and briefs, but also memoirs, reports, policy papers etc.) that helps to overcome the notorious direness of documentation on Japan’s conduct during the war.

The project’s principal aim is to advance our historical understanding of the inherent reasons and mechanisms of mass violence during the Asia-Pacific War and the role that law played in it. However, the complex and precarious relation between law, war and violence is still at the heart of humanitarian issues today. Thus, the historical insights of this project also have very practical implications for our conflict-laden world today.

II. Extended Synopsis

1. Research Problem

When Japan expanded its empire on the Asian continent and entered all-out-war with China in 1937 and the US in 1941, it waged war as much on the ideational as on the physical level. The courts-martial and military court system that Japan established throughout East and Southeast Asia were but different theatres of war that served crucial functions in Japan’s ‘war without mercy’ (Dower 1986). On the formal level, adjudication of soldiers and civilians sought to demonstrate to audiences at home and abroad that Japan was fighting a ‘lawful’ war that observed the laws in war to the letter and legitimately liberated Asia. In substance, however, it served Japan’s total war goals through punishment and deterrence, remoulding soldiers into more efficient fighting machines and cowing civilians into submission to Japan’s ‘New Order’ in East Asia. However, contrary to expectation, this often led to an escalation rather than containment of violence.

‘Law without Mercy’ examines the Japanese military justice system as an institution at the interface of violence, law, and ideology, providing unique and novel insights into the dynamics of the Asia-Pacific War. In particular, it contributes to solving some of the most challenging issues of the Asia-Pacific War, namely the causes of the horrendous escalation of mass violence (defined as widespread and excessive use of force outside actual fighting) and the ambivalent role that law and legal practice played in it. Although not unique to the Asia-Pacific War (and thus findings of the project are relatable to other cases and the general debate), the gap between the legal and ideological level and the horrendous physical reality of the war has been particularly wide and difficult to explain in the case of Japan’s war conduct. ‘Law without Mercy’ postulates that far from contradicting each other, violence, law and ideology were in fact mutually dependent and reinforced each other. In these dynamics, law played a key role as mediator of violence and ideology.

Thus, when Japan entered the war with China in 1937, both parties refrained from declaring war for strategic and ideological reasons. Japanese authorities, however, stated that they would apply the laws of war nonetheless to the letter (Zachmann 2013). Japan reaffirmed this adherence when it entered war with the US in 1941. Moreover, its expansion on the continent and into the Pacific was accompanied by the highly utopian rhetoric of a ‘New Order’ and ‘Co-Prosperity Sphere’ in East and Southeast Asia. Japanese experts were even drafted into the project of devising a legal blueprint for an ‘East Asian international law’. And yet, the brutal realities belied official statements. Violence perpetrated against civilians was pervasive, as was insubordination of soldiers within the military. Civilians in the occupied territories responded with violence, either individually or as part of guerrilla warfare. Thus, courts-martial and military courts were swamped with an ever-increasing number of cases.

The military justice system generally mirrored, and substantially contributed to the escalation of violence of the Asia-Pacific War: Courts-martial prosecuted Japanese soldiers for military offences, including insubordination against superiors and crimes against civilians. Military courts prosecuted civilians in occupied territories for criminal offences and violations of criminal provisions. There were considerable variations in the way the system was set up: In some areas, local judges and the police were coerced or co-opted into the proceedings, which raises sensitive issues of collaboration and the role of local elites. In most cases, however, the Japanese military took adjudication upon itself. Moreover, military courts also dealt with ‘grave war crimes’ of soldiers of enemy countries.

Trials reproduced the irritating disconnect between excessive attention to form on the outside and extreme brutality in substance: Cases were often meticulously documented, minutely detailing the personal history of defendants as well as the facts underlying the accusations. Thus, the case files prepared by the military legal services provide a wealth of information and offer a fascinating insight into the situation of soldiers at the front and civilians in the occupied territories. Yet, trials were held in swift manner, with no right to appeal or petition and with predictable outcomes: ninety per cent of civilians were executed; soldiers were imprisoned and re-educated, only to be dispatched swiftly back to the frontline.

Yet, there was also palpable tension within the courts, as these were regularly composed of military and formerly civilian members (the legal experts). Thus, through memoirs and notes, we also get a brief glimpse into the intense ideological struggles that played out between these constituencies, thus mirroring the tensions of the Japanese empire and the course of war in nuce.

‘Law without Mercy’ analyses the verdicts, investigation reports, personal notes and ministerial documents related to military justice as a way to shed light on law’s role in the escalation of violence during the Asia-Pacific War. By systematically analysing a whole new body of sources in a unique and novel conceptual framework, this study is pioneering an innovative and productive line of historiographical inquiry. This project provides insights into the relation of law and violence in war that are still central to many humanitarian issues in our world today.

2. Research Aims and Objectives

The primary aim of ‘Law without Mercy’ is to trace the following interrelated dynamics of the Japanese wartime empire during the Asia-Pacific War through the lens of Japan’s military justice system and situate them within the wider context of the history of violence in modern Japan, legal history, intellectual and political history:

1. The dramatic escalation of mass violence, particularly the deterioration, as reflected in military court cases, of military discipline and violation of military standards in many theatres of the Asia-Pacific War, and the concomitant gross violations of rights of civilians in occupied territories;
2. The increasingly strategic subordination of law to the agenda of Japan’s ‘Greater East Asian War’, using law as a bureaucratic tool of rationalisation and standardisation, as a means to indoctrinate and intimidate soldiers and civilians in the service of total war, but also – perhaps – in some cases as a ground to contest and subvert this agenda;
3. The intense ideological struggle over Japan’s war aims and the ultimate power to define the nature of the war that interfered with and informed the adjudication of courts-martial and military courts in the Asia-Pacific War.

The central purpose of this project is to advance research on Japan’s war history through making accessible a whole new body of historical sources for analysis and raise questions that provide new insights into the nature of Japan’s war conduct and belligerent occupation. Providing new qualitative data to the public, it informs historical debates on Japan’s war conduct as well as the relation of law and belligerent violence in general.

Books

(2017) ed., Asia After Versailles: Asian Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and the Interwar Order, 1919-1933, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (East Asian Studies Series), 2017. 256 pp.

(2015) with Christian Uhl, eds., Japan und das Problem der Moderne: Wolfgang Seifert zu Ehren Japan and the problem of modernity: Festschrift in honour of Wolfgang Seifert), Munich: Iudicium, 2015.

(2013) Völkerrechtsdenken und Außenpolitik in Japan, 1919-1960 (The Japanese discourse on international law and foreign policy, 1919-1960), Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2013. xiv, 436 pp., index.

(2009/2011) China and Japan in the Late Meiji Period: China Policy and the Japanese Discourse on National Identity, 1895-1904, London: Routledge (Routledge / Leiden Series in Modern East Asian Politics and History), 2009 (Hardcover) and Jan. 2011 (Paperback). x, 238 pp., index.
 - Winner of the JaDe-Preis 2010 awarded by the JaDe Foundation for the Promotion of Japanese-German Culture and Science Relations (Cologne) -

Co-editor of the Series East Asian Studies Series of University of Edinburgh Press, with Natascha Gentz (University of Edinburgh) and David Der-wei Wang (Harvard).

Articles and Book Chapters

(2020) "How to Identify Relevant Scholarly Debates. Reviewing the Literature", in: Nora Kottmann, Cornelia Reiher (eds.): Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2020, pp. 102-116.

(2020) "Yokota Kisaburō. Defending International Criminal Justice in Interwar and Early Post War Japan", in: Fréderic Mégret/Immi Tallgren (eds.): The Dawn of a Discipline: International Criminal Justice and Its Early Exponents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 335-357.

(2018) "Loser's Justice: The Tokyo Trial from the Perspective of the Japanese Defence Counsels and the Legal Community", in: Kerstin von Lingen (ed.), Transcultural Justice at the Tokyo Tribunal. The Allied Struggle for Justice, 1946-48. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018, pp. 284-306.

(2017) “Introduction: Asia after Versailles”, in: Urs Matthias Zachmann (ed.), Asia After Versailles: Asian Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and the Interwar Order, 1919-1933, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press (East Asian Studies Series), 2017, pp. 1-19.

(2017) “Sublimating the Empire: How Japanese Experts of International Law Translated ‘Greater East Asia’ into the Postwar Period”, in: Barak Kushner and Sherzod Muminov (eds.), The Dismantling of Japan’s Empire in East Asia: Deimperialization, Postwar Legitimation and Imperial Afterlife, London: Routledge, 2016, pp. 167-181.

(2016) “From Nanking to Hiroshima to Seoul: (Post-)Transitional Justice, Juridical Forms and the Construction of Wartime Memory”, Journal of Modern European History 14:4 (2016), pp. 568-584.

(2016) “Souveränität, Gleichheit und Regionale Autonomie: Die Entwicklung des außen­politischen Denkens Japans im 17. – 19. Jahrhundert“ (Sovereignty, equality and regional autonomy: the evolution of foreign policy thought in 17th - 19th Japan), in: Klaus Vollmer (ed.), Japan im vormodernen Ostasien (Dhau. Jahrbuch für außereuropäische Geschichte 1), St. Ingbert: Röhrig Universitätsverlag, 2016, pp. 161-184.

(2015) “Japan’s Transition from ‘Greater East Asia’ to a Trans-Pacific Order, 1931-1960”, in: Johnson, Robert David (ed.), Asia Pacific in the Age of Globalization, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 143-151.

(2015) “Enter the Void: Japan’s Transition from Regionalism into a New International Order, 1944-1960”, in: Urs Matthias Zachmann and Christian Uhl (eds.), Japan und das Problem der Moderne: Wolfgang Seifert zu Ehren, Munich: Iudicium, 2015, pp. 125-132.

(2014) “TAOKA Ryoichi’s Contribution to International Legal Studies in Pre-war Japan: With Special Reference to Questions of the Law of War”, Japanese Yearbook of International Law 57 (2014), pp. 134-162.

(2014) “Does Europe Include Japan? – European Normativity in Japanese Attitudes towards International Law, 1854-1945”, Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 22 (2014), pp. 228-243.

(2014) “The Reception and Use of International Law in Modern Japan, 1853-1945”, Zeitschrift für Japanrecht / Journal of Japanese Law 37 (2014), pp. 109-137.

(2013) “Race and International Law in Japan's New Order in East Asia, 1938-1945”, in: Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (eds.), Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western and Eastern Constructions, Leiden: Brill, 2013, pp. 453-473.

(2012) “The Postwar Constitution and Religion“, in: John Nelson and Inken Prohl (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religions, Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 215-240.

(2012) Translation of Maruyama Masao “Kuga Katsunan – hito to shisō, 1947”: „Kuga Katsunan – Der Mensch und sein Denken (1947)“ (The life and thought of Kuga Katsunan), in: Maruyama, Masao: Freiheit und Nation in Japan: ausgewählte Aufsätze 1936-1949. Wolfgang Seifert (ed.). vol. 2, Munich: Iudicium, 2012, S. 19-42.

(2011) “The Foundation Manifesto of the Tōa Dōbunkai (East Asian Common Culture Society), 1898”, in: Sven Saaler and Christopher Szpilman (eds.), Pan-Asianism – A Documentary History, Vol. 1: 1859-1920, Boulder, Co.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011, pp. 115-120.

(2011) “Konoe Atsumaro and the Idea of an Alliance of the Yellow Race, 1898”, in: Sven Saaler and Christopher Szpilman (eds.), Pan-Asianism – A Documentary History, Vol. 1: 1859-1920, Boulder, Co.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011, pp. 85-92.

(2011) “The Foundation Manifesto of the Kōa-kai (Raising Asia Society) and the Ajia Kyōkai (Asia Society), 1880-1883”, in: Sven Saaler and Christopher Szpilman (eds.), Pan-Asianism – A Documentary History, Vol. 1: 1859-1920, Boulder, Co.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011, pp. 53-60.

(2011) “Race without Supremacy: On Racism in the Political Discourse of Late Meiji Japan, 1890–1912”, in: Manfred Berg and Simon Wendt (eds.), Racism in the Modern World: Historical Perspectives on Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, New York: Berghahn Books, 2011, pp. 255-280.

(2010) “Eine andere Form der Ungleichheit: Behinderung and soziale Stratifikation in Japans kakusa shakai-Diskussion“ (A different kind of inequality: disability and social stratification in Japan’s kakusa shakai debate), Contemporary Japan 22 (2010), pp. 75-98.

(2010) “War and International Order in Japan’s International Legal Discourse: Attitudes among Japanese International Lawyers during the 1920s”, Review of Asian and Pacific Studies (Seikei University), vol. 35 (2010), pp. 103-120.

(2010) “Lob der Gegenrestauration: das Staatsverständnis Kuga Katsunans (1857-1907)“ (In praise of counter-restauration: Kuga Katsunan’s concept of the state), in: Thomas Fröhlich and Eung-Jeung Lee (eds.): Staatsverständnis in Ostasien, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2010, pp. 45-68.

(2009) “Terra marique: die Rückkehr des Raums in der völkerrechtlichen Debatte Japans, 1989-2009” (Terra marique: the revival of spatial concepts in the Japanese debate on international law, 1989-2009), in: Iris Wieczorek and David Chiavacci (eds.), Japan 2009 – Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (VSJF), 2009, pp. 113-133.

(2008) “Asianismus und Völkerrecht: Japans sanfter Übergang von der Großostasiatischen Wohlstandssphäre zu den Vereinten Nationen, 1944-1956“ (Asianism and international law: Japan’s easy transition from the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to the United Nations, 1944-1956), Comparativ: Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschafts­forschung 18:6 (2008), pp. 53-68.

(2008) “’China‘ in der kulturellen Selbstdefinition Japans bei Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835-1901): Anmerkungen zu Fukuzawas Datsua ron (1885)“ (‘China’ in Japan’s cultural self-identification: some reflections on Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Datsua ron, 1885), in: Robert Horres (Hrsg.): Referate des 12. Deutschsprachigen Japanologentages, vol. 1: Geschichte, Geistesgeschichte, Religion. Bonn: Bier’sche Verlagsanstalt, 2008, pp. 237-248.

(2007) “Guarding the Gates of Our East Asia: Japanese Reactions to the Far Eastern Crisis (1897-98) as a Prelude to the War,” in: Rotem Kowner (ed.), Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5, vol. 1: Centennial Perspectives. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2007, pp. 13-30.

(2007) “Blowing Up a Double Portrait in Black and White: the Concept of Asia in the Writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Okakura Tenshin,” in: positions: east asia cultures critique 15:2 (2007), pp. 345-368.

(2005) “Imperialism in a Nutshell: Conflict and the ‚Concert of Powers’ in the Tripartite Intervention, 1895,” in: Japanstudien (DIJ Tokyo), vol. 17 (2005), pp. 57-82.

(2003) “Ich und Du: Chinesische Topoi in Natsume Sôsekis Kusamakura (1906)“ (Me and you: Chinese topoi in Natsume Sōseki’s Kusamakura’, in: Wolfgang Seifert and Asa-Bettina Wuthenow (ed.): Anbauten, Umbauten: Festschrift für Wolfgang Schamoni zum sechzigsten Geburtstag. Munich: Iudicium, 2003, pp. 171-186.

(2000) “Watanabe Kazan: Abschiedsbrief an Tsubaki Chinzan 10. Oktober Tenpô 12 (1841)“, (Watanabe Kazan’s farewell letter to Tsubaki Chinzan, 10 October Tenpō 12), hon’yaku 2 (2000), pp. 18-27.

(1996) Lexicon entries on Guilin, Hayashi Ôen, Hosokawa Gracia, Miyazaki Tôten, Shinpûren, Yabu Kozan und Yoshida tsukasa ke in: Wolfgang Schamoni (ed.): Kleines Kumamoto Lexikon (Concise introduction to Kumamoto), Heidelberg: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, 1996.

Reviews

(2018) "Japan's Early Practice of International Law, 1870-1907", Rezension von Douglas Howland, International Law and Japanese Sovereignty. The Emerging Global Order in the 19^th Century (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2016), in: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 26 (2018), pp. 483-485.

(2016) “Ungentle Civilizer: Treaties and Colonial War in 19^th Century International Law”, review of Harald Kleinschmidt, Diskriminierung durch Vertrag und Krieg: zwischenstaatliche Verträge und der Begriff des Kolonialkriegs im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013) in: Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History 24 (2016), pp. 487-489.

(2010/11) Review of Ann Sherif, Japan’s Cold War: Media, Literature, and the Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), in: Journal of Japanese Studies 37:1 (Winter 2010/2011), pp. 239-243.

(2008) Review of Nishida Satoshi, Der Wiederaufbau der japanischen Wirtschaft nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: die amerikanische Japanpolitik und die ökonomische Nachkriegsreformen in Japan, 1942-1952 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007), in: The International History Review 30:4 (2008), pp. 877-879.

(2004) Review of Christian Uhl, Wer war Takeuchi Yoshimis Lu Xun? Annäherungsversuch an ein Monument der japanischen Sinologie, München: Iudicium, 2003, in: DIJ Newsletter: Mitteilungen aus dem Deutschen Institut für Japanstudien 21 (2004), pp. 9-10.

Other

(2017) "Kriminelle Geschäfte auf Lizenzbasis. Archaisch der Habitus, modern der Unternehmensstil: Ein Band gibt Einblicke in das Treiben der Yakuza, die sich als Ritter von Japans Unterwelt verstehen." Rezension von Wolfgang Herbert und Dirk Dabrunz, "Japans Unterwelt". Reisen in das Reich der Yakuza. (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 2017), in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Nr. 191, 18.8.2017, p. 10

(2013) Written evidence for the British House of Lords „Select Committee on Soft Power and the UK’s Influence“ on Japan’s historic and current soft power strategy, published on:
http://www.parliament.uk/soft-power-and-uks-influence
and referenced in the committee’s reportPersua­sion and Power in the Modern World (2014)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldselect/ldsoftpower/150/15002.htm

Papers Presented: Invited Talks and Refereed Conferences

2019

• "International Law", Workshop "Germany and Japan in a State of Exception and in the Total War of the 20th Century", The Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main, 20 Nov 2019.
• "Fighting war by law in Asia: Japanese military justice during the Asia-Pacific War, 1937-45", Joint East Asian Studies Conference, University of Edinburgh, 6 Sept 2019.
• "Visions of Future Past: Planning for Victory in Wartime Tokyo, 1937-1945", Japanese Studies Association of Australiea Biennial Conference 2019, Monash University, Melbourne, 4 July 2019.
• "The Subversive Internationalist - Visions of Interwar Order and Japanese International Lawyers' Responses to the Paris Peace Conference", 1919 - The Paris Peace Conference, Institut Historique Allemand, Paris, 6 June 2019.
• "Self-Determination in Three Keys: Asian Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and on Interwar Order in East Asia", ASEN Annual Conference 2019, University of Edinburgh, 25 April 2019

2018

• "Die Apotheose der Massen: Massen und Medien im Konnex zwischen Außenpolitik und Innenpolitik der Taishō-Zeit" ("The apotheosis of the masses: Masses and media in the connex between foreign policy and domestic policy of the Taishō era"), Internationale Konferenz Das Erbe der Meiji-Restauration - Wege zur liberalen Demokratie 1868 - 2018 (International Conference The heritage of the Meiji Restauration - Paths to liberal democracy 1868 - 2018), German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Halle (Saale), 14 Dec 2018.
• "Japanese Response to the Concept of Individual Criminal Responsibility", Konferenz 70 Years Later: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Panel IV: Crimes Specifically Addressed within the Tokyo Judgment, International Nuremberg Principles Academy, 19 May 2018; video recording of the panel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbOczrvTK8c 

• 「大東亜共栄圏」の思想的及び法的構成—比較的な観点から, Research Group for the History of the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs, Keio University, Tokyo, 13 March 2018.

•  "Race and the Concept of Asia in Japan's East Asian Relations", School of Asian Studies, University College Cork, 23 Feb 2018.

• "Weaponising Particularism: Japan's Critique of Western International Law in the Asia-Pacific War and Its Aftermath", Lecture Series "Global Intellectual History as Political and Ethical Critique", LMU München, 17 Jan 2018.

2017

• "Soviet Asia: Soviet Political Thought in the Making of Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 1940-45", International Conference Problems and Perspectives for Japan in a Changing World: Thirty Years fo Japnanese Studies in Poznan, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Polen, 8 Dec 2017
• "Lethal Transplants: Particularism and Universalism in Late Meiji Legal Concepts of the Family", EAJS 2017 Conference, Lissabon, 2 Sept 2017.
• Presentation at the Symposium "International Law in a Trans-civilizational World". Star Hall, Josui Kaikan, Tokyo, 19 March 2017.

2016

•  “What China? Sino-Japanese Relations and the Discourse on China as a ‘Failed State’, 1895-1933”, 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies, Sankt Petersburg, 26 Aug 2016.
•  “Japanese Courts Martial and Military Courts in East and Southeast Asia, 1937-1945”, AAS Annual Conference 2016, Seattle (USA), 1 April 2016.
•  Roundtable discussion “Erzähl mir eine Geschichte – Literatur- und Geschichtswissenschaft im Dialog“ (‘Tell me a story’: literary and historical studies in dialogue), Forum für Literaturwissenschaftliche Japanforschung, Freie Universität Berlin, 27 Feb 2016.

2015

•  “Loser’s Justice: the Tokyo Trial from the Perspective of the Japanese Legal Community”, workshop Law, Biography, and a Trial: Tokyo’s Transnational Histories, Heidelberg University, 7 Dec 2015.
•  “From Nanjing to Hiroshima to Seoul: (Post-)Transitional Justice, Juridical Forms and the Construction of Wartime Memory”, Workshop Doing Law, Writing History: New Perspectives on the Post-World War II Trials of Nuremberg and Tokyo, Center for Advanced Studies, LMU Munich, 5 March 2015.
•  「大東亜共栄圏」の思想的及び法的構成—比較的な観点から」, 比較地域体系共同研究会, Kagoshima, 30 Jan 2015.

2014

•  “The Subject-less Empire - Why there is no ‘Asian Turn’ in the History of International Law,” conference History and Histories of International Law, Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, Helsinki, 27 Oct 2014.
•  “Sublimating the Empire: How Japanese Experts of International Law Translated ‚Greater East Asia’ into the Postwar Period“, conference Breakdown of Empire and the Rise of Legitimacy in East Asia, Cambridge University, 22 Sept 2014.
•  “Kriegsarenen, Friedenstheater: Die Versailler Friedenskonferenz und völkerrechtliche Debatten in Ostasien“ (Theatres of war, theatre of peace: the Paris Peace Conference and the East Asian debate on international law), conference Die ostasiatische Dimension des Ersten Weltkriegs: Der „Deutsch-Japanische Krieg“ und China, 1914-1919, Bochum University, 7 Sept 2014.
•  “Soviet Asia: Soviet Political Thought in the Making of Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 1940-45”, 14th International Conference of EAJS, Ljubljana (Slovenia), 30 August 2014.
•  “The Unbearable Translucence of Religion: Constitutional and Political Problems in the Separation of State and Religion in Contemporary Japan”, conference Buddhism and the Formation of Authority in Systems of Rule, LMU Munich, 14 August 2014.

2013

• “Behind the Scenes: Soviet and German Political Thought in Japan’s ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’“, Comparative Histories of Asia Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, London, 7 November 2013.

2012

• “Zivilisation, Raum und ‘Rasse’: Prüfsteine der deutsch-japanischen Beziehungen“ (Civilisation, spaces and ‘race’: stumbling blocks in German-Japanese relations), Bayreuth University, History Department, 19 Dec 2012.
•  “International Law in Japan, 1931-1960: from Greater East Asia to Pax Americana”, Asian Studies Centre Seminar Series 2012/13, Cambridge University, 8 Oct 2012.
•  “Japanese International Law in the Global Nineteenth Century", workshop Japan in the Global Nineteenth Century - Continuities and Entanglements, Freie Universität Berlin, 27 July 2012.
•  “The Future of Chinese-Japanese Relations and Global Governance", seminar Russia, China and Global Governance, Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation London, 21 June 2012.
•  “Vom ‘Begräbnis-Buddhismus’ zum Engagierten Buddhismus? Buddhistische Reaktionen auf die Gro­ße Erdbebenkatastrophe in Ostjapan, 2011“ (From ‘Burial Buddhism’ to bouddhisme engagé? Buddhist reactions to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami), Arbeitskreis Japanische Religionen, Tubingen University, 5 May 2012.
•  “The Eternal Promiscuity of the Japanese Mind: Some Thoughts on the Tradition of Hybridity in Japanese Modern Intellectual History“, workshop Rupturing Epistemes, Shifting Paradigms: Turning Points in Japanese Intellectual, Aesthetic and Political History, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich 11 April 2012.
•  “Being Japan: Nationalist visions of the world in late Meiji Japan (the case of Kuga Katsunan, 1857-1907)”, workshop Tōzai bunmei-ron, Oslo University, 29 March 2012.
•  “The History of Japan’s Modern Legal System”, opening lecture for Spring School, Tsukuba University, 27 Feb 2012.