Japanese government publishing laws in English

The Japanese government is planning to translate more of its laws into English. They will publish English translations of more than 200 laws over the next three years.

The new translations will be informative only — the original Japanese text will be the legally binding one. But the translations should be helpful to non-Japanese speakers seeking to understand the details of the law.

The Japanese government already publishes some laws in English now. The new translations will be more helpful to businesses, since they will include the Commercial Code and other corporate and intellectuial property laws. They may also be useful to individual foreigners — they are also translating the Penal Code. Hopefuly you won’t need to worry about that.

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