Codes

Civil Code of Japan (1896/1898)

Also Known As Meiji Civil Code, Minpo

Citation Formats

General Reference

Law Atlas. "Civil Code of Japan (1896/1898)." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-law.interactiveatlas.org/codes/japanese-civil-code-1896.

APA Style

Law Atlas. (n.d.). Civil Code of Japan (1896/1898). Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-law.interactiveatlas.org/codes/japanese-civil-code-1896

BibTeX

@misc{lawatlas-civil-code-of-japan-1896-1898,
  author = {Law Atlas},
  title = {Civil Code of Japan (1896/1898)},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-law.interactiveatlas.org/codes/japanese-civil-code-1896},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Japan's Civil Code was drafted by a three-jurist committee, Hozumi Nobushige, Tomii Masaakira and Ume Kenjiro, after an earlier draft largely modeled on the French Civil Code was shelved in 1892 amid domestic controversy. The new committee's work was enacted in two stages: General Provisions, Real Rights and Claims in 1896, and Relatives and Inheritance in 1898. Structurally it followed the Pandekten system of the first 1887 draft of the German BGB, while retaining French influence in places and giving considerable weight to Japanese customary practice in family and inheritance law. It became an influential model for civil-law codification elsewhere in East Asia, particularly Korea and Taiwan.

Facts

Era

General Provisions, Real Rights and Claims enacted 1896; Relatives and Inheritance enacted 1898 1

Promulgated By

Drafting committee of Hozumi Nobushige, Tomii Masaakira and Ume Kenjiro, under Japan's Codes Investigating Committee 2

Cross-Tradition Connections