Kent Anderson is a comparative lawyer specialising in Japan. He is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) and Professor of Law at the University of Adelaide, Adjunct Professor at the Australian National University and a founding Co-Director (now Advisory Board member) of ANJeL. Kent has an eclectic background, having completed tertiary studies in Japan, US, and UK, and working first as a marketing manager with a US regional airline, then as a practicing commercial lawyer in Hawaii, and, before joining ANU, as associate professor at Hokkaido University School of Law. He has also been a visiting professor at Waseda, Nagoya, and Chuo Universities in Japan. Outside of work, Kent enjoys brewing Ales, listening to the Blues, and playing with his Child - the ABCs of life.

Professor Dr Harald Baum is Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Japan Department at the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign Private and Private International Law, Hamburg, Germany; Priv.Doz., University of Hamburg; Research Associate, European Corporate Governance Institute, Brussels, Belgium; Founding and Executive Editor: Zeitschrift für Japanisches Recht / Journal of Japanese Law (ZJapanR, which ANJeL now collaborates in); and Vice-president, German-Japanese Lawyers Association (an ANJeL affiliate). Dr Baum is an expert in comparative commercial law, with numerous publications on business law, corporate governance, takeovers, and capital markets regulation in Germany, the EU, Japan, and the U.S., comparative law, and private international law.

Meryll Dean is Head of the Law Department at Oxford Brookes University, England. She was previously Legal Assistant to the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities and held various academic posts at in the School of Legal Studies at Sussex University, England. Professor Dean has published one of the leading textbooks on Japanese law: The Japanese Legal System (London, Cavendish, 2002) and has written in the areas of Japanese public and constitutional law. Her most recent research has been on Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, the role of the Self- Defence Forces and the legality of their participating in international operations. The most recent published work on this is a Chapter "Renouncing Peace in a Time of War – Japan’s Constitutional Conundrum" in Paul Eden and Thérèse O'Donnell (eds), 11 September 2001: A Turning Point in International and Domestic Law? (Ardsley, New York, Transnational Publishers, 2005). In addition to this work, her current research is looking at asylum and immigration law in Japan and will also consider the issue of human trafficking. In December 2004 she gave a guest lecture at Waseda University entitled "Enforcing International Legal Norms: Asylum and Immigration in Japan and the United Kingdom". She visited Sydney around the week of the 23 February conference.

Masahiro Kohara is the Consul-General of Japan. He assumed his post in April 2010. Graduating from Tokyo University, Mr. Kohara joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in 1980. He has been appointed to the consulate-generals of Japan in Hong Kong (1993-96) and Los Angeles (2005-07), as well as the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations (1996-99). Within the Ministry itself he served as Deputy Director, Press Division (1989-91), Deputy Director, Loan Aid Division, (1991-1993), Director, Regional Policy Division (1999-01), and Deputy Director-General, Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau. He has also taught at Kyushu University, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and Waseda University, and gained his doctorate in International Relations from Ritsumeikan University.

Masako Kamiya, a graduate of Tokyo University, is Professor of Law at Gakushuin University, specialising in Anglo-Commonwealth and American constitutional law. She also teaches Legal Informatics and American Law at the new Law School at Gakushuin University.

Akira Kawamura is a partner at Anderson Mori & Tomotsune, one of Tokyo's largest law firms, and has an extensive general corporate and litigation practice with numerous large multinational domestic and foreign clients. He specializes in corporate, M&A, intellectual property, international trade, entertainment, publication, energy and real property law. He is a corporate auditor [kansayaku] and board member [torishimariyaku] of a number of Japanese companies, and is also an experienced arbitrator/mediator. He is also an influential member of the Japanese Bar, having served as Executive Vice President of the Dai-ni Tokyo Bar Association, Executive Director of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren) and Chairman of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' Foreign Lawyers and International Legal Practice Committee. He was a Visiting Professor from 2001-3 at Kyoto University's Faculty of Law, where he graduated with an LLB in 1965. Akira Kawamura also obtained a LL.M from the University of Sydney in 1979, and trained at a law firm in Australia. His publications (as editor-in-chief/author) include Australia Law and Business (1979) and Law and Business in Japan (new ed, 2000).

Michael Ryland is a commercial lawyer at Blake Dawson with 20 years experience as a practising lawyer in both Australia and Japan and also as a government policy adviser. He specialises in cross border investment involving Australia and Japan and practises in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financing, corporate restructuring and international joint ventures. He has worked in Australia, Japan and Indonesia, including eight years as a partner in an Australian based international law firm, and two years as a Commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Michael is also a Visiting Fellow of the Macquarie University Applied Finance Centre.

Veronica L. Taylor is the Director of the School of Regulation, Justice and Diplomacy at Australian National University (ANU) and Professor in the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) at ANU. She is also an Affiliate Professor of Law and Senior Advisor to the Asian Law Center at the University of Washington, where she was the Center Director 2001-2010.

Her work focuses on socio-legal approaches to commercial law in Asia, applied regulatory theory, and rule of law promotion. She has 20 years’ experience designing rule of law interventions in Asia and has directed multiyear legal reform projects in Afghanistan, rural China and Indonesia.

Her most recent publications include a book, edited with Per Bergling and Jenny Ederlöf, Rule of Law Promotion: Global Perspectives, Local Applications (Iustus FörIag, 2009) and ‘Rule of Law Assistance Discourse and Practice: Japanese Inflections’ in Amanda Perry-Kessaris (ed) Law in the Pursuit of Development: Principles into Practice (Routledge, 2010). In 2010 she was the inaugural Hague Visiting Professor in Rule of Law at the Hague and the Van Vollenhoven Institute, University of Leiden: Veronica.Taylor@anu.edu.au

Malcolm Smith was the dean of comparative Asian law in Australia. Educated at University of Melbourne and Harvard, he went on to establish the Asian Law Centres at both University of British Columbia and University of Melbourne, where he was Foundation Professor of Asian Law. In 2004, he joined Chuo University Law School as Professor of Asian Law. Mal was a founding Advisor to ANJeL and one of its most dedicated supporters. Malcolm Smith passed away unexpectedly in July 2006.