Theoretical Research on Evaluation and Methods for Legal Assistance Activities

近年来，正处于从社会主义体制向市场经济体制转型的亚洲国家都在寻求外国，特别是日本的人力资源和知识援助，以建立适应市场化进程的新的法律基础设施。日本政府从1996年开始向越南、老挝、柬埔寨等国提供法律援助。然而，在实施这些计划的过程中，出现了一些根本性的问题。其中有一些问题，询问法律援助的理念是什么，提供援助的对象应是哪些法律领域。在这一优先领域的研究中，对该领域正在进行的法律援助活动进行学术审查，以期建立一个新的法律援助研究学科。首先，构建新一代比较法研究的框架，使法律援助项目的运作和评估能够受益于信息科学的成果。在此基础上，它还审查了将这一框架具体化的可能性。第二，通过将现有的评估方法应用于公共行政领域，寻求建立评估法律援助活动的方法。研究的结果和结果以题为“法律援助的信息基础：比较法研究的新框架”的报告的形式发表(Matsuura Yoshiharu，F.Bennett，Yoro Shinichi，Tanaka Kikuo主编)。本报告的目标不仅限于发展评估方法这一狭隘的方面，而且还从“为新一代比较法研究构建框架”的角度汇集不同的研究成果。我们期待在这些成果的基础上进行进一步的研究。

In recent years, Asian countries that are in the process of shifting from the socialist system to the market economy system are seeking human resources and knowledge-based assistance from foreign countries, particularly Japan, in order to build up a new legal infrastructure responsive to the move to marketization. Japanese government has started its legal assistance programs for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, etc, since 1996. However, in the course of implementing these programs, some fundamental questions emerged. Among them are questions asking what the philosophy of legal assistance is and what areas of law should be the targets for providing assistance. In this priority area research, academic reviews of the ongoing legal assistance activities in the field are conducted with a view to constructing a new discipline on legal assistance studies.The research group has two objectives. First, it seeks to construct a framework for "the New Generation of Comparative Law Studies", which will enable the operation and evaluation of legal assistance projects to benefit from the achievements made by the information science. On that basis, it also examines the possibility of concretizing this framework. Second, it seeks to establish methods for evaluating legal assistance activities, by applying the existing evaluation methods in the field of public administration.Findings and outcomes of the research are published in the form of a report on "Information Foundation of Legal Assistance : A New Framework for Comparative Law Studies" (Matsuura Yoshiharu, F. Bennett, Yoro Shinichi, Tanaka Kikuo, eds). The objectives of this report are not confined to the narrow aspect of developing evaluation methods, but also to bring together different research findings from the perspective of "constructing the framework for a new generation of comparative law studies". We expect that further research will be conducted on the basis of these achievements.