Roman law and the Japanese Civil Code: the collective and common property

Legal systems at European or Latin American level are understood thanks to Roman law, their indisputable source. However, other civil codes also contain Roman law influence, such as the Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, and even Filipino codes. The Meiji modernization project is one of the most studied points not only by the Japanese themselves, but also by foreign academics. Specifically, this phenomenon involved importing Western legal institutions into what we know as “the Roman-Germanic tradition”. Throughout this paper I will try to briefly expose the study of Roman law in Japanese universities, taught in Tokyo Kaisei-Gakko since 1874 by an English professor, which continues to this day as a subject different from modern civil law but without forgetting the relationship between both rights. In this regard, I will make a special reference to the collective and common property in the Japanese Civil Code so that we can analyze its differences in relation to other codes, such as Spanish, as well the influence that Roman law may have in this area.