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My field of expertise is international human rights law and gender law, and I am particularly looking at LGBTQ human rights issues from the perspective of international human rights law. This topic is difficult to reach an international agreement on due to various factors such as differences in religious norms and traditions, and there are no clear, legally binding rules like the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Despite this situation, the international community recognizes it as a human rights issue and is making efforts to improve it, which I feel is of great significance in my research.

In Europe, LGBTQ issues began to be seriously discussed as human rights issues in the 1980s, ahead of the rest of the world. I think there are two reasons for this. One is that in Europe, for example, same-sex sexual relations were subject to criminal punishment, and dressing in the opposite sex was a social stigma (a cause of discrimination and prejudice), and discriminatory situations clearly existed. The other is that the region has had a long history of normative awareness of human rights, and a system for protecting human rights, known as the European Convention on Human Rights, was in place. It has also been said that human rights originally originated in Europe.

Discussions on LGBTQ human rights have gradually spread from Europe to the rest of the world, and have progressed considerably, especially in regions that can be considered advanced in human rights, such as the United States and Latin America. On the other hand, looking at other regions, the reality is that about 70 of the 193 UN member states still criminalize same-sex sexual relations, and seven of these countries impose the death penalty. In Japan, discussions have finally progressed in the past decade, but same-sex marriage is not currently recognized, and very strict conditions are imposed on changing one's legal gender. With no judicial or legal remedies available for actual discrimination issues, it must be said that there is still a long way to go.

For a while after I started my research activities in the late 1990s, I had to go to the UN to listen to discussions at the UN, so I would go to New York or Geneva and search for and copy documents in libraries to gather information. Until the early 2000s, only a limited number of researchers had access to the UN, so it was an important role of researchers to disseminate the content of the UN discussions to society. Nowadays, many UN meetings are live-streamed and can be accessed freely by anyone without going to the UN, and most of the materials can be viewed at any time on the UN website. Anyone can easily discuss what the issues are, how they are being discussed, and how they compare to Japan. However, there are many things that cannot be fully understood with just videos and materials, so before the COVID-19 pandemic, I would travel to Europe and other parts of the world to talk directly to plaintiffs and litigation representatives in cases related to LGBTQ human rights issues, support groups such as NGOs, policy makers, and politicians. There is some information that can only be obtained by talking face-to-face, and in many cases this information touches on the core of the case, so I believe that on-site interviews are still important.

Currently, I am working with researchers from Japan and abroad to examine the history and current state of LGBTQ human rights issues and legal policies in East Asia, and to identify the fundamental factors that shape the challenges unique to this region. As mentioned above, the idea of human rights is said to have originated in Europe, and this field has been led by Western countries for many years. In fact, there is often a sense of difference in perception between Western researchers and researchers in East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The purpose of my current research is to find out the impact that this difference in perception has on the law. To achieve this goal, I am working to create a system that allows us to deepen our discussions by talking about the current situation and issues in our first language, so that we can understand even the slightest differences in perception and nuances as accurately as possible.

Even at international conferences discussing LGBTQ human rights issues, there is often a tendency to place emphasis on the views of people from English-speaking countries or those educated in English-speaking countries, and I feel quite uncomfortable with the assessment that "Asia is lagging behind." For example, differences such as the relationship with religion, which is discussed as a main topic in Europe, are not such a big topic in East Asia, in particular, and are emphasized in different ways or, conversely, forgotten completely. I hope that if researchers and NGO activists living in East Asia like me can talk about and disseminate information on issues in our own first languages, comparative research will be conducted in a somewhat different way than before.

A common value shared in East Asia, including Japan, is the traditional view of family, which says that the happiness and interests of the family should be prioritized over the happiness of the individual. This can lead to situations where it is difficult to accept family forms that differ from existing family norms, which is thought to directly lead to the difficulties of living for LGBTQ people. I am attempting to discuss how to interpret this explanation and how to address such situations from the perspective of traditional legal hermeneutics, from the field of law. There are approaches to LGBTQ from academic fields such as sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, psychology, and literature, but one of the features of my research is that I dare to analyze the issue by sticking to the field of law. While carefully examining and comparing the interpretations of human rights norms in courts and international human rights organizations in other countries, I will continue to deepen my research in the future, considering the connection with history and society, and based on the results of my research, what suggestions they give to Japanese legal interpretation.

In Japan, human rights issues are often perceived as a matter of individual consciousness, but in some ways this is a very dangerous phenomenon. At the root of human rights issues are problems with social structure, which cannot be solved by individual consciousness or effort alone. If we treat it as a matter of individual consciousness, it becomes unclear what a country that should protect human rights should and should not do. When considering human rights, it is necessary to clarify what actions a country should take. Of course, individual consciousness and feelings are important, but I believe that we must also pay close attention to the laws, precedents, and political decisions that make up the social structure, which are even more important issues.

The first topic I tackled as a Faculty of Law student was the issue of same-sex marriage, which I dealt with in my third year in a family law seminar. It was a time when Denmark was the first country in the world to create a same-sex registered partnership law, and it seemed like it was going to spread around the world. However, it was not a major topic in the field of law, and there were only a few previous studies in Japanese. Due to this, I moved to an international law seminar in my fourth year and studied the impact of international intellectual property rights regulations on the North-South issue, and then entered graduate school to research related topics. However, in a class on international human rights law in my master's program, I learned that the European Court of Human Rights had made some interesting decisions regarding LGBTQ, so I quickly changed my research topic, and I've been doing it ever since.

A quarter century has passed since the LGBTQ human rights issue became the theme, but thinking about things from the perspective of human rights, not limited to LGBTQ, is very important, but also very difficult. When thinking about human rights issues, it is necessary to confront not only the painful experiences of being discriminated against or the bitter experiences of discriminatory practices, but also the fact that we have lived without being aware of the discriminatory structure, or even that we have unconsciously contributed to it. In my classes, I sometimes tell my students that "everyone is both a victim and a perpetrator of human rights violations." For example, when it comes to LGBTQ issues, people who have experienced discrimination and hurt may hurt other people involved or minorities other than LGBTQ in other situations. Also, even people who do not consider themselves involved are required to continue asking themselves whether they really have discriminatory thoughts in their hearts, for example, whether they are acting assuming that the people around them are non-parties like themselves. When thinking about human rights issues, it always involves the task of looking back at the path you have lived, who you are now, and how you will live in the future, so there will always be moments when it weighs heavily on you as if it is not someone else's problem, but your own, and you feel exhausted. In this respect, it may be said that your time as a student, when you have plenty of free time and the opportunity to think flexibly about various things, is your only, and in some ways your last, chance to seriously confront human rights issues. From the perspective of human rights, look back on your life so far and think carefully about who you are now and how you will live in the future.

(Published in June 2022)