Ruben RODRIGUEZ SAMUDIO

• Position: Assistant Professor (Faculty of Law, Waseda University)
• Degree: BA in Law, University of Panama; MA in Law, Hokkaido University; Ph.D., Hokkaido University
• Background:
  Assistant Professor, Hokkaido University (2018 – 2019, 2020 – 2021)
  Researcher, Hokkaido University (2019 – 2020, 2021 – 2022)
  Part-time lecturer, Keio University (2019 – 2022)

Field of Specialization / Research Theme / Research Projects

Comparative Law /Latin American Law/Japanese Law/Civil Law/ New Fields in Law/Legal Theory and History/ Law and Technology/ Privacy/ Smart Societies

[Research Grants]

Personal Data and Smart Societies: Is Privacy Possible in Smart Cities? Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) 2022-2026

Major Works/ Publications

[Books]

• Ruben Rodriguez Samudio, AI Decision-making in Smart Cities, Japan’s Society 5.0, in Challenges of Law and Technology (Gerald Spindler, José Hernán Muriel Ciceri eds.) Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2023
• Ruben Rodriguez Samudio, E-government Challenges in Smart Societies: The Japanese Experience, in Digitalization as a Challenge for Justice and Administration (Markus Ludwigs, José Hernán Muriel Ciceri eds.) Würzburg university press 2023

[Articles]

• Ruben Rodriguez Samudio, Non-Economic Losses under Japanese Law from a Comparative Law Perspective (1-5), Hokkaido Law Review (2022 – 2025)
• Ruben Rodriguez Samudio, Consent in Smart Societies, 43 Waseda Bulletin of Comparative Law 1 (2025)
• Ruben Rodriguez Samudio, Transmisibilidad del crédito por daño moral en el derecho japonés, 71 Vniversitas 71 (2022)
• Modelos normativos de privacidad en las ciudades inteligentes, 52 (197) Revista de la Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas 581 (2022)
• Ruben Rodriguez Samudio, The Price of a Tweet, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, 53 Journal of Japanese Law 71 (2022)

Awards

• Panameños en el Extranjero (Panamanians Abroad) Government of Panama

Academic Societies/ Service to Society

Academic Societies

• The Japan Association for Latin American Studies (2018 – present)
• Japanese Society of Comparative Law (2018 – present)
• Society for Computers and Law (2019 – present)
• Japanese Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (2020 – present)

Web Page / Researcher DB / Course List

[Waseda University Researchers Database]
Details of a Researcher – RODRIGUEZ SAMUDIO, Ruben

Message to Prospective Students

Professor Ruben Rodriguez Samudio is a licensed lawyer in the Republic of Panama. After obtaining his Master’s and Doctorate in comparative law at Hokkaido University, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the same institution. He has taught at various universities, both in Japan and abroad, including Keio University, Aichi Prefectural University, and joined Waseda University in 2022. At Waseda LLM, he teaches courses in academic research and writing, IT Law, and comparative law.
Professor Rodriguez Samudio began his academic career by studying the comparative law aspects of civil liability before branching into the field of law and technology. He is interested in both public and private aspects of IT law, ranging from privacy protection to freedom of expression, as well as constitutional issues in smart societies. He has published articles in Japanese, English, and Spanish.