Extraterritoriality in China and Japan

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Extraterritoriality was a key aspect of Japanese and Sino-foreign relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This panel aims to bring together scholars on the subject that will be of broad interest to those working on many aspects of East Asian history. The panel focuses on British extraterritoriality and Japanese and Sino-British cases illuminating some of the fundamental aspects of the establishment of the courts, regulations and principles of extraterritoriality. Court cases both encapsulated and reflected the relationships between states, businesses and individuals involving issues of commerce, social life and politics. As such, court cases are a significant lens onto understanding the complex relationships between Chinese, Japanese, British and other foreign nationals. The papers offer a comparative analysis of Japan and China as well as offering perspectives of how mixed court cases were constituted in both the local and broader regional context. Tomoko Morita explores the British Japanese consular legal system demonstrating how local context produced no Mixed Court in Japan. Takaki Nishiyama explores Sino-British civil court cases and how they forged commercial regulations in the local and regional context. Finally Emily Whewell explores summary criminal consular court cases in Shanghai to show how the cases were reflective of local, regional and global aspects of interaction. The panel is a strong contribution on a fundamental part of Japanese and Sino-British relations, offering an analysis with emphasis on the overlaps between the local, the regional and global in China, Japan and East Asia.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing

Session Organizer

• Emily Whewell, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History

Chair

• Pӓr Cassel, University of Michigan

Individual Presentations

• British Criminal Jurisdiction in Shanghai: Sino-British Cases - Emily Whewell, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History

• The 'Treaty Tribunal' and International Commerce: Dispute Resolution in-between British and Chinese Legal Systems in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Shanghai - Takaki Nishiyama, University College London

• The Coexistence of Native and Consular Courts in Japan in the late Nineteenth Century - Tomoko Morita, Chubu University