ABSTRACT
The belief that the Japanese are an exceptionally nonlitigious people is remarkably pervasive. Commentators, both within and without Japan, are almost unanimous in attributing to the Japanese an unusual and deeply rooted cultural preference for informal, mediated settlement of private disputes and a corollary aversion to the formal mechanisms of judicial adjudication. A published inquiry into the decisions to litigate in the pollution cases documents a variety of cultural factors causing the litigants to hesitate to sue. The orthodox view of Japanese "litigiousness," however, relates to a reluctance to litigate, not simply the amount of litigation. Even assuming such a reluctance to exist, to be meaningful in terms of evaluating the role of the judiciary it must involve more than simply a desire to avoid lawsuits. The paradigm process of dispute resolution for most societies, including Japan, is two or three-tiered.
