La giustizia sportiva in Giappone

As the internationalization and commercialization of sports further develop, disputes with regard to sports are increasing in number worldwide, and Japan is not an exception to this trend. The main outlet for sport disputes in Japan is the Japan Sports Arbitration Agency (JSAA), established in 2003 with this specific purpose. There, however, are institutions other than the JSAA for resolving sports disputes: national courts and dispute resolution bodies within sports associations. The Japanese situation is quite interesting in comparative terms, because in the country there are still doubts about whether a sport-related dispute may be considered as a «legal dispute» under the Court Law. In the second part of this paper, case decisions in national courts with regard to disputes between an athlete and a sports association will be analyzed, and confirmed that courts have often considered a dispute with regard to decisions by an association as a legal dispute, and that it cannot be said that national courts are closed for an athlete to seek the nullification of a decision by a sports association. Finally, this paper offers some comparative remarks about the Italian system of sport justice, to which Japanese observers are looking with increasing interest.