ABSTRACT
Much of the English language commentary on Japan’s PL Law over the 1990s
lacked a full historical perspective (e.g. Green 1996; Melchinger 1997), a broad
comparative perspective (e.g. Dauvergne 1994), or sufficient attention to both
legal and social science dimensions (e.g. Maclachlan 1999, 2002). This chapter
begins by sketching the evolution – and sometimes the revolution, or devolution
– of PL in the US, the UK and the EU, and Australia (see generally Howells
1993). It introduces the importance of the legal, notably the contrasting types of
cases and doctrinal approaches underpinning legislative initiatives in the US, and
the UK or the EU, along with the hybrid situations in Australia and Japan. It also
shows parallels in the politicization of PL law reforms particularly since the 1960s
(in the US), the 1980s (in the EU), and the 1990s (in Australia and Japan), as well
as a tendency back to more pro-defendant regimes in the US and (very recently)
Australia, contrasting with gradually expanding pro-consumer stances in Japan
and (especially now) the EU. This lays some broad comparative foundations for
the chapter’s later detailed analysis of the ‘re-birth’ of PL in Japan since the late
1980s, which rebuilt from ‘still-birth’ in the mid-1970s; and for Chapter 3’s more
detailed black-letter law comparison of the PL Law with the present regimes in
the US, the EU and Australia.
