by Dan Wade
Yale Law School Library
Rob Britt and Mary Strouse of the East Asian Law Department of the Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library have produced a useful index to the EHS looseleaf set of English translations of Japanese laws. Japanese Laws in English: An Index to the EHS Law Bulletin Series (1995) provides easy access to the numerous laws translated in the eight volume set. While many law libraries may not have the EHS Law Bulletin Series, which is considered the standard translation of Japanese laws, because of its expense (much more affordable is the EHS Roppo, the six main codes of Japan: Constitution, Civil Code, Commercial Code, Penal Code, Code of Civil Procedure, and Code of Penal Procedure, which is available from International Information Sources for $170), they should all have the Index because it enables the researcher to understand what laws have been passed (and rendered into English) and greatly facilitates the making of interlibrary loan requests.
The Index is comprised of four different access points: an index to English titles, one to Japanese titles, one by enactment date, and one by subject. There is also an appendix that provides a list of subject headings. The 157-page index is spiral bound and easy to read.
Libraries wishing to acquire the Index should send a check in the amount of $65.00 to Vickie Moor at the following address:
University of Washington
Gallagher Law Library
1100 NE Campus Parkway
Seattle, WA 98105-6617
The Index serves as a model for the kind of research tools academic law libraries should be creating to make the ever increasing legal information more accessible. By such efforts the East Asian Law Department of the Gallagher Law Library has made itself a recognized world leader in providing East Asian legal materials to them.
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