Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor in International Law, Akita International University, Japan

Expert Bio

Tetsuya Toyoda is an associate professor at Akita International University, where he is teaching international law and constitutional law since 2007. Before that he was a project researcher at the University of Tokyo (2006-2007) and an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1994-2000). He graduated from the University of Tokyo (Faculty of Law) and obtained his Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies from the University of Paris II-Panthéon-Assas. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Far Eastern Federal University (Vladivostok, Russia). His current research interest is on the nineteenth-century development of international law as a result of contacts between the European and non-European civilizations.

Wilson Center Project

Reconsidering International Territorial Law in East Asia

Project Summary

The remaining three major territorial disputes in East Asia are over small islands, the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute between the Republic of Korea (and DPRK) and Japan, the Senkaku/Diaoyudao dispute between Japan and China (and Taiwan), and the Paracel and Spratly dispute between China (and Taiwan), Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. With the rise of nationalism in East Asia, the disputes over those islands have become serious impediments to regional cooperation. One of reasons of unease comes from the fact that the rules of modern international law for territorial demarcation are not fit to the sense of justice of the peoples in East Asia. This research project aims to identify the solutions best fit to the sense of justice, and thus least unacceptable, in the region.