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Every day we conduct research into why real estate, which is used by everyone, can be taken for granted.

Yuna Ito, 2nd year master's student at the Graduate School of Law

Walking down the street, living in a house. Real estate is something that everyone uses on a daily basis. When you think about the "basis" for being able to use it, it is often surprisingly difficult to understand.

Many students at Waseda University live in rented apartments near the university. If we look at this "renting" and "living" from a legal perspective, it means that you have concluded a "lease contract" with the landlord and are exercising the right to "use" a room in the apartment based on the "tenant rights" that result from that contract. In other words, this rental, which we usually call "renting," also has a legal basis.

I am researching this kind of "right to use real estate owned by others." In addition to the lease I mentioned earlier, the law provides for many other "rights to use real estate." For example, the Japanese Civil Code includes "surface rights," "emphyteusis," "servitude," and "usufruct" (※). My current research is aimed at clarifying how these rights are differentiated and presenting new classifications and types for them. By advancing this research, I hope to be able to use clearer standards to determine whether people have rights to use land and what their rights are in court, and to prevent unforeseen disadvantages for the parties involved in the case, in addition to facilitating litigation.

(*) Surface rights: The right to use another person's land to own structures, bamboo or trees (Civil Code Article 265).
Emphyteusis: The right to cultivate or raise livestock on someone else's land by paying rent (Civil Code Article 270).
Easement: The right to use another person's land for one's own purposes in accordance with the purposes determined by the parties (Civil Code Article 280).
Loan for use: The right to borrow something from another person and use it free of charge for a certain period of time (Civil Code Article 593).

What prompted me to decide on "rights related to real estate" as the general subject of my research was a casual comment from a classmate in my third year of undergraduate studies. At the time, the assignment for my thesis was to "select and discuss one provision that was newly established or changed in the Civil Code reform." When I told my classmate that I was struggling to choose a provision to write about, he opened the Roppo Zensho and pointed out a provision that caught his eye. It was a provision about real estate leasing. At the time, I never imagined that I would become a researcher, but I thought it would be interesting to think carefully about real estate, which is used by everyone, and ask myself, "Why is it that we use it so naturally?" This comment from my classmate was the trigger for me to spend my time at Graduate School of Law.

Photo on the left: A specialized study room in Building No. 2 on Waseda Campus. There is a room for each research field of law (civil law, constitutional law, criminal law, etc.), and it serves as a place for students to interact with each other regardless of whether they are in a master's or doctoral program.
Right: Bookshelf in the special study room. I keep my own books on the top two shelves in the foreground.

In graduate school, you are expected to take an active approach to research. Therefore, during my first year of master's studies, I spent my days groping in the dark about what books and papers I should read in order to decide on a clear research topic related to real estate. In particular, there is an extremely large amount of previous research and basic texts on civil law, and I didn't know where to start. Nevertheless, through opportunities to give reports in class, I managed to decide on my research topic as "the right to use real estate owned by others," and even now I am reading related literature, following the drafting process of the civil code, and collecting court cases related to the use of real estate.

In addition, in the master's program at the Graduate Graduate School of Law, in principle, students are required to compare Japanese law with foreign laws, but I decided to compare it with French law. This is because French law has a completely different "system" from Japanese law, so I thought it would be more suitable for examining how rights are "divided." I chose German as my second foreign language when I was an undergraduate, so I had to learn French after entering graduate school, which was also difficult. However, I have now reached a level where I can read case commentaries and basic books written in French, although I still need to use a dictionary. In the doctoral program, I need to pass the French Foreign Language Proficiency Test as a condition for submitting Doctoral Dissertation, so I am also working hard to study the language in order to do so.

Daily Schedule

• 7:00am Wake up (When I don't have classes or a part-time job, I wake up around 9:00am)
• 10:30 Part-time job (I work at Graduate School of Law Students' Reading Room)
• 13:00 Lunch
• 14:00 Research (in the library or in a specialized room. Take a break and chat with classmates or seniors)
• 23:30 Return home
• 00:30 Go to bed

Photo left: Waseda Campus 8 Graduate School of Law Students' Reading Room at Building No.. I work as a staff member at the seat in the foreground.
Photo right: Most of the time I have lunch at a convenience store at the university, but on days when I finish my research report, I sometimes get a little excited as a reward for myself. The photo shows a set meal of pickled sashimi at "Toden Table" near the university.