Litigation and Moral Consciousness in Japan an Interpretive Analysis of Four Japanese Pollution Suits

In the two years from June 20, 1971, to March 10, 1973, Japanese courts decided four pollution injury suits colloquially known in Japan as the “big four.” This litigation and the social and political movements that accompanied it are of great interest from several perspectives, including the doctrinal development of Japanese tort law. This article, however, will focus not on the legal or political impact of the litigation, but on the way in which cultural and social factors influenced its course. I attempt to illuminate thereby a side of the Japanese legal system that is ordinarily hidden from view, i.e., the interface of modern Japanese society and the formal legal system.