일본의 캄보디아 민법 제정 지원과 제정된 민법의 내용

Since 1975 was Cambodia a communist socialist country. A new constitution in September 1993 reestablished Cambodia as a free and democratic country on the basis of market economy. The Khmer Rouge regime(1975-1979), established in 1975, sought to completely restructure Cambodian society. All administrative system of the old government was stopped and all laws was abolished. The new regime ordered the evacuation of all cities and towns, sending the entire urban population(Most of them were well educated elite) out into the countryside. Many of them starved or died of disease during the evacuation and its aftermath. The large scale death of the intellectual elite brought Cambodia into the drastic lack of the experts. Cambodia tried transition to a market economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it took poor achievement due to the drastic lack of the well learned experts. Therefore it looked to other nations for help with reform of its legal and judicial system. The Civil code of Cambodia shows different features to the amendment of the vietnamese Civil Code, which has been completely revised in 2005 by help of Japan like it. It takes few remains of socialistic laws and follows faithfully legal principles of market economy like the protect of property right, the freedom of contract. Furthermore, it is very different to Japanese Civil Code, although Japanese lawyers and professors have played an very important role in making the draft of the Civil code of Cambodia. Japan has been supporting legal system reform of the countries in transition in Asia since 1996. Its assistances for legal and judicial system reform were especially concentrated upon Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Therefore, its experiencies and outstanding achievements can be very suggestive and helpful to us, who prepares similar projects in the same countries.