On December 19, 2020 at 2:00 pm, Professor Naoto Otsuka from Waseda University gave a video lecture titled The Development and Boundaries of the Doctrine of Rights in Japanese Wrongful Acts Law - The Basis of Environmental Civil Litigation Law at ZOOM. The international forum was hosted by Southeast University Law School and co-organized by Wuhan University Environmental Law Institute. Nearly 100 professionals from Southeast University, Wuhan University, Nanjing University, Jilin University, Jiangsu Normal University and other universities attended the video conference. Associate Professor Shan Pingji, Associate Professor Liu Jianli, Associate Professor Gao Xiang, Associate Professor Liu Mingquan and some graduate students attended the lecture. The lecture was hosted by Associate Professor Liu Mingquan, who also served as the on-site translator.
At the beginning of the lecture, Vice President Shan Pingji delivered a speech on behalf of President Liu Yanhong, extending a warm welcome to Prof. Naoto Otsuka and introducing that Prof. Otsuka not only has profound legal attainments, but also has made outstanding contributions in the field of environmental law because he is also the chairman of the Japanese Society for Environmental Law Policy and other positions. Prof. Qin Tianbao, a national outstanding young jurist, vice president of China Environmental Resources Law Research Association and director of Wuhan University Environmental Law Institute, delivered a speech to express his warm welcome to Prof. Naoto Otsuka, introducing the rapid development of Chinese environmental resources jurisprudence and the judicial problems encountered in the development (especially injunction litigation), hoping to learn more about Japanese environmental judicial experience, and welcoming Prof. Otsuka to lecture in Wuhan at his convenience. I also welcome Professor Otsuka to Wuhan at his convenience. Prof. Naoto Otsuka firstly expressed his honor to attend this lecture, and recalled that he received Prof. Qin Tianbao's environmental law monograph from a friend at a very early stage, and hoped to continue the exchange with Chinese academics in the future.
Prof. Naoto Otsuka mainly discussed how the rights theory unfolds in Japanese law of delicts and its boundaries. As an object, he mainly discusses public nuisance, life nuisance, environmental infringement, reputation and privacy infringement, and the field of medical malpractice, which are covered by modern-type lawsuits for remedies of infringement of personality rights. These are issues that emerged after the second half of the 1980s, and from the perspective of researchers in the law of delicts, they belong to the first generation of Eiji Kato and Ichiro Katsuma, the second generation centered on Ikio Hirai, and the third generation of researchers who have discussed them.
In the section on the regeneration of the rights doctrine and the generation of new rights, Prof. Naoto Otsuka introduced the new trend of thinking in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Japan, the doctrines that support the movement of the jurisprudence on the regeneration of the rights doctrine, summarized the six characteristics of the rights doctrine, and evaluated and reviewed the views related to the rights doctrine, such as the constitutional base multilayer theory, the view of the right to decide, the unity of rights theory, the doctrine of the exclusion of illegality, the doctrine of the exclusion of publicness, and the integration theory.
In the interactive session, Li Rui, a doctoral student in administrative law, asked Professor Otsuka about the similarities and differences between civil law and administrative law in terms of rights and enduring obligations. Prof. Otsuka gave detailed answers from civil law and administrative law, civil injunction lawsuits and administrative standards in the field of public hazards, Japanese administrative license and injunction lawsuits, Japanese injunction lawsuits and German law, administrative lawsuit plaintiff eligibility, and national landscape lawsuits.
Prof. Naoto Otsuka's wonderful sharing was thought-provoking and brought a unique perspective to the students and faculty of Southeast University School of Law, which made people deeply inspired. Associate Professor Liu Mingquan once again sincerely thanked Professor Otsuka for his participation and welcomed his future field lectures to our school. The nearly two-and-a-half-hour lecture ended successfully in a relaxed and harmonious atmosphere!