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ฉบับพิเศษ ประจำ�ปี 2564

In the second Japanese Private International Law, which was enacted in 1898
(and revised in 2006 with the Code’s name changed, although the second code before

revision should apply to this case), there are provisions regarding the choice-of-law on
property as follows: 9

Horei (1898):

Article 10 (Real Right and Other Rights Requiring Registration)
(1) A real right to movables or immovables and any other rights requiring
registration shall be governed by the law of the place where the subject property

of the right is situated.
(2) Notwithstanding the preceding paragraph, acquisition or loss of a right

prescribed in said paragraph shall be governed by the law of the place where
the subject property of the right is situated at the time when the facts constituting
the cause of the acquisition or loss were completed. [underlined by the author]

These provisions are deemed to have adopted the principle of lex loci rei sitae,
viz. the law of the place where the thing is located. If these provisions had been applied
in a simple manner, the property issue should have been ruled by Japanese law since

the moment of the car’s arrival in Japan, as long as it remains within the territory.
The immediate acquisition of property of a stolen car was then deemed to be possible
in some cases, due to art.192 of the Japanese Civil Code, leading to the denial of

the plaintiff’s claim in the case.

However, the disputed interpretative point was whether it is reasonable for
a movable such as a car to be governed by the law of the place where it is located at
any given time. If so, the applicable law on movable property could change whenever

9 As for the first codification of Private International Law in Japan, see HARATA, L’exterritorialité,
la juridiction consulaire et le droit international privé : une réflexion sur le droit international privé à la fin de XIXème
siècle, in Luigi Nuzzo and Miloš Vec (eds), Constructing International Law. The Birth of a Discipline (Klostermann,
Frankfurt am Main, 2012) pp.331-362.
For the most recent Japanese Act of Private International Law enacted in 2006, see HARATA, Quelques
réflexions historiques sur la situation du droit international privé japonais-le rôle des juristes dans le processus
législatif au Japon-in: ICCP Publications, No. 13 (2015) pp.263-86.

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