By considering the development of the concept of ‘Just War’ in Japan’s international legal studies in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, this policy brief distils thoughts elaborated in my Japanese monograph ‘戦争と平和の間――発足期日本国際法学における「正しい戦争」の観念とその帰結’ for the wider English-language audience. At the height of the Sino-Japanese (1894-1895) and Russo-Japanese (1904-1905) wars, Japanese scholars endeavoured to construct a Japanese system of international legal studies and thought on war. By analysing the views expressed by representative Japanese scholars at that time, the monograph provides an in-depth examination of the meaning of ‘Just War’, in both theory and practice.

YI Ping is Assistant Professor at Peking University Law School since 2009. She was a Research Fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2007-09. She holds an LL.B. (2000) and LL.M. (2003) from Peking University Law School, and studied for and obtained LL.M. (2006) and LL.D. (2009) degrees at the University of Tokyo Graduate School for Law and Politics. Her research interests include the law of war and the history of international law.