About us

The Institute of Maritime Law was established in October 2007 as one of the Project Research Institutes under the Comprehensive Research Organization in Waseda University. Removing the frame of “Waseda University,” the Institute consists of members who engage in research and practice of maritime law such as researchers affiliated in universities and research institutes, lawyers, inhouse counsels both inside and outside of Japan. The Institute currently has 59 members including 10 oversea members (as of April 2017).
From the multi-disciplinary viewpoint, the research fields of our researchers cover civil-commercial law, penal law, international law, legal history, and dispute resolution.
The Institute has been hosted events for international exchange and maritime law education as well as joint research on maritime law in cooperation with the industry. As the first institute of maritime law in Japan that is surrounded by sea, all members make their best efforts so that the Institute becomes a major base for comprehensive maritime law study covering both theory and practice.

We expand our activities based on the following three pillars.

Maritime law has been positioned in marginalized place of various legal disciplines for a long time. Gathering scholars of these areas and supporting individual study of members, the Institute can display its maximum comprehensive power and thereby actively study on various legal issues which Japan practically encounters in maritime field. To achieve this purpose, the Institute establishes specialized study groups in which all members can participate based on their research interests. Some of these groups welcome public participation, and others continuously publish their research fruits in professional journals. The Institute also makes its efforts to dispatch the results of study from the viewpoint of strengthening industry-academia collaboration and contribution to society.
Currently the following seven study groups are active: Case Study Group; Foreign Maritime Law Study Group; History of Maritime Law Study Group; Vessel Collision Law Study Group; Maritime Criminal Law Study Group; Vessel Financial Law Study Group; and Maritime Insurance Law Study Group.

One of specialties of maritime law is its internationality. The Institute works on international exchange and international collaborative research in this field as well as joint research by members. Especially, the Institute has actively engaged in academic exchange of maritime law in East Asia by Japan, China, and Korea, which has not been active regardless of the importance as its economy.

The Institute actively engages in education of professional human resources in this area as a research institute established in a university. As a first step, the Institute developed an education program for maritime law education held at the Graduate School of Law in Waseda University (official master course) targeting businessmen such as practitioners in corporations and lawyers. Directed by the members of our Institute, the study course called “Practice and Law of International Maritime Affairs” was started in April 2009 as the first maritime law LL.M course in Japan. This course is composed of enriched subjects based on the program developed by our Institute and offers the master degree by completing subjects on maritime law and submitting a thesis. In addition to those classes taught by our members, there is a subject called “Maritime Policy Study,” which is fully supported by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Maritime Bureau and taught by the personnel in charge. So far 10 people obtained the master degree through this program in the first and second graduating class. In April 2012, the fourth batch of students entered to this program.