Professor Shun Kaku
Shun Kaku is Professor of Legal Philosophy at the Faculty of Law, Waseda University, Tokyo. After completing an undergraduate law degree at the University of Tokyo, and before completing his PhD in legal philosophy at the University of Tokyo, he served as a Research Associate at the University of Tokyo, and then an Associate Professor at Hokkaido University. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, the University of Cambridge, a Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and a Special Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Professor Kaku works primarily in the areas of legal philosophy and international law. He is especially interested in the concept of law, the relationship between law and morality, and the normative foundations of international law, and examines them from the perspective of participants in the plurality of practices of law, which stand side by side with and mutually recognise one another as an endeavour aspiring to the rule of law. Developing this idea, he is currently working on publishing a book in English theorising the reflexive concept of law.
Apart from writing numerous articles and book chapters, he is the author of Reclaiming the Philosophy of International Law (2022, in Japanese), an award-winning book from the Japanese Association of Legal Philosophy, and a coeditor of several books. He teaches broad areas of legal philosophy, including issues of global justice and the global legal order, at graduate and undergraduate levels. He holds a fourth-dan in Aikido.
Select publications
- Reclaiming the Philosophy of International Law, Kobundo (2022) (in Japanese).
- The Enterprise of Legal Philosophy, Shinzansha (2025) (in Japanese, coeditor with Takikawa Hirohide, Ohya Takehiro and Ando Kaoru).
- Inquiries into Fair Law, Shinzansha (2021) (in Japanese, coeditor with Sugawara Yasunori).
- ONUMA Yasuaki, A Transcivilisationalist International Lawyer”, Meguro Maiko and Negishi Yota (eds.), Histories of International Legal Theories in Japan, From Dialogue to Conversation, Manchester University Press (2026).
- “On the Morality of Neutrality in War”, Matsumoto Masakazu (ed.), Will Justice Win? The Law and Philosophy of War, Shinzansha (2026) (in Japanese).
- “Legalising International Law?: In Pursuit of an Alternative to Hart’s Concept of Law”, Journal of International Law and Diplomacy, Vol.123, No.3 (2024) (in Japanese).
- “Democracy and War: Mutual Prerequisites?”, IIda Takashi, Saito Tetsushi, Takikawa Hirohide and Matsubara Kentaro (eds.), Legal Radicalism: Foundational Approaches to Law and its Limits, Yuhikaku (2024) (in Japanese).
- “International Law: Legitimacy of”, Mortimer Sellers and Stephan Kirste (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Springer, 2023).
- “Law’s Legitimacy in Distress: The Changing Structure of International Law-Making and Its Impact on the Domestic Legal Order”, Thailand Journal of International Law, No.1 (2016).
Select awards
- 2024 – JALP Prize, The Japanese Association of Legal Philosophy
- 2016 – Special Research Fellowship, The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Further links
Shun Kaku – Researchmap – Japan Science and Technology Agency (https://researchmap.jp/skaku?lang=en)
