Ume Kenjirō and the Making of Korean Civil Law, 1906-1910

In 1906 Itō Hirobumi invited Ume Kenjirō (1860–1910), a drafter of the Meiji Civil Code, to oversee the creation of a modern legal system in protectorate Korea. Ume's legal reform, which focused on writing a Korean civil law and establishing modern judicial administration, was imbued with nineteenth-century natural law theory, and it proceeded under the assumption of the continuing existence of an independent Korea. Cut short by annexation, Ume's saga in Korea highlights the insight and tensions underlying colonial legal reform and presents a powerful case that legal development under Japanese influence needs to be considered from a perspective detached from the nationalist paradigm.