일본민법 개정작업의 최근동향

The world is active in revising civil codes. The civil code of netherlands was revised in 1992, the state of Quebec in Canada revised its civil code in 1994, and Germany succeeded in revising obligatory law in almost a century in the year of 2002. Due to such stimuli, France is preparing the revision after 200 years of application. Countries like Austria, Switzerland, and Spain are also going through the revision process. China enacted contract law in 1999, property law in 2007 and tort in 2009. In Korea, after the draft devised in 2004 was not adopted in the year of 2008, the revision preparation which takes four years, recommenced the following year. Japan is also trying to revise the core of its civil code. Since the civil code of Japan was enacted in 1896, if the code is actually revised, it would be the first revision in a century. Recently, Japan has been revising or newly enacting civil laws in order to deal with modern society. Japan is attempting as such to meet the demands that urge the legal system to match social structure change that occurred while the country experienced high economic growth and bubble economy. This article intends to observe the recent revision process of the Japanese civil code in accordance with Korean civil code revision. After introducing the contents which were already revised in Japan, the obligatory law revision process in Japan will be evaluated based on the research of the ‘Japanese Civil Code Revision Research Society’ and the ‘Japanese Civil Code (Law of Obligation) Reform Commission (JACCRC)’. Then the default on obligation issues will be brought into consideration.