Dear Ladies and Gentlemen
The German-Japanese Lawyers' Association and the Humboldt University of Berlin cordially invite you to a lecture in German by
Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. Makoto Ida
Capital Punishment in Japan. A contribution to the theory of punishment
on Thursday. October 10, 2024 18:00 s.t.
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Juristische Fakultät, Unter den Linden 9, Raum 213, 10117 Berlin
The State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Justice, Dr. Angelika Schlunck, will open the event with a video greeting.
Japan still has the death penalty, which is not often, but regularly imposed and carried out. The benefits and necessity of the punishment are also controversial in Japan, even though surveys show that a majority of the population is in favor of retaining it. Prof. IDA, one of the country's leading criminal law scholars, has written a book with the title of the lecture in which he takes a critical look at the death penalty from the perspective of penal theory. The book he refers to in his lecture questions the significance of the theory of punishment as retribution, which is prevalent in Japanese criminal law scholarship today and is used as a basis by both supporters of the death penalty and those who advocate its abolition. In doing so, he highlights the premises of the current Japanese debate and its problems. His book has met with great interest in Japan and has rekindled the deadlocked discussion in academia and society. The book has now been translated into German by Prof. Dr. Matthias K. Scheer, making it accessible to German-speaking countries.
About the speaker:
Makoto Ida was born in 1956. He is currently a professor at Chūō University Hōka Daigaku-in (Law School), professor emeritus at Keiō University and Dr. jur. at the University of Cologne. Prof. Ida was a member of the Science Council of Japan, Chairman of the Religious Juridical Persons Council of the Ministry of Culture and Chairman of the Legislative Commission at the Ministry of Justice. He is currently an advisor to the Judicial Training Institute of the Supreme Court and has been Chairman of the Roundtable on the Death Penalty Commission since February 2024. Prof. Ida holds honorary doctorates from Saarland University and Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. He has been awarded the Philipp Franz von Siebold Award (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation), the Eugen and Ilse Seibold Award (German Research Foundation), the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cross of Merit on Ribbon), the Order of Shiju Hōshō (Medal with Purple Ribbon) by the Japanese Emperor and the Chūō University Science Award 2023.
We look forward to your participation.
With kind regards
Dr. Jan Grotheer, DJJV, Prof. Dr. Luís Greco (LL.M.), HU Berlin
