L’assistance juridique japonaise aux pays dits émergents d’Asie Japanese Legal Technical Assistance to Emerging Countries in Asia. A Contribution to the Pluralistic Approach to the Circulation of Law

Fort d’un système normatif à la croisée de plusieurs traditions juridiques, le Japon entend participer plus résolument au développement actuel des modes de circulation du droit via notamment sa poli-tique de coopération internationale en matière d’assistance juridique et judiciaire aux pays émergents d’Asie. Cet article examine les particularités de la politique japonaise d’assistance en prenant appui sur des réflexions plus larges concernant les modalités contemporaines d’interaction des normes et le renouvellement des processus d’élaboration du droit. Cela permet de cerner les contradictions d’une assistance juridique con ue à la fois comme outil d’uniformisation du droit et instrument de coordination normative, au service d’une approche pluraliste de la circulation des normes. On the strength of a legal system stemming from various traditions of law, Japan is trying to participate more actively in the current development of the circulation of law, especially through its policy of international cooperation in the field of legal technical assistance and judicial assistance to emerging countries in Asia. This paper scrutinizes the specificities of the Japanese policy in the field drawing on broader analyses about contemporary means of interaction between norms and the reshaping of the processes by which law is elaborated. This may help shed some light on the contradictions of a form legal technical assistance that is conceived both as a tool for the standardization of law and a device that facilitates the coordination of laws at the service of an approach of legal pluralism.