ABSTRACT

Melbourne Law School’s Asian Law Centre has been a host for Japanese judges as part of the Supreme Court of Japan’s overseas training and research programme for over 15 years. This chapter analyses the visiting judges’ responses to a questionnaire about their experiences before, during and after the programme, and considers the potential longer-term benefits to the Japanese judiciary that such a programme offers, as well as the challenges inherent in engaging in meaningful judicial and intellectual cross-cultural exchange. The results are analysed from the perspective of global debates about mobility, especially in the higher education sector, and the content of judicial education. This chapter thus develops one of this book’s key themes by highlighting a Japanese case study to find direct solutions to common global challenges: improving international exchange experiences and training judges. It concludes that the programme offers invaluable opportunities, but the programme is expensive and its impact is difficult to assess, as future changes to the Program at Melbourne Law School demonstrate.