Gustave Boissonade de Fontarabie and the idea of natural law in Japan in the Meiji era

The spread of rationalist concepts of natural law in Japan was associated with the influence of the Western civilization, which intensified considerably with the beginning of the Meiji period. After the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate's feudal regime (1603-1868), Japan opted for a large-scale modernization of national legal institutions and the social and political system based on the model of progressive Western states. Westernization affected practically all spheres of social life of the Japanese. One of the directions of reception of Western ideas was the adoption (internalization / perception) of foreign doctrines of natural law by Japanese intellectuals. In this article, the authors examine how the European philosophy of natural law was introduced into Japan and why a “foreign” idea of natural law was able to establish itself in the legal environment of this Far Eastern country. The authors analyze the peculiarities of the legal tradition of pre-Meiji Japan which distinguish it from the Western legal tradition, determine the first cases of Japanese acquaintance with the New European philosophy of natural law. The article specifies that the introduction of the natural law theory into the Japanese “legal circulation” took place in the process of reception of the French law as well as thanks to the teaching activities of the French lawyers hired by the Ministry of Justice to teach Japanese students. It is noted that a prominent French comparativist, professor at the University of Paris, Gustave Boissonade de Fontarabie, played a major role in promoting the ideas of natural law in the Japanese archipelago. In 1873, Boissonade came to the Far East at the invitation of the Meiji government to provide advice on modernizing Japan's legal system and to help train legal personnel for the new institutions of justice. The article provides a detailed description of Gustave Boissonade's views on natural law and an overall evaluation of his legal philosophy.

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