KÅtarÅ Tanaka (judge)
Kotaro Tanaka (Japanese田中 耕 太郎, born October 25, 1890 in Kagoshima, Japan, † March 1, 1974 in Tokyo, Japan ) was a Japanese lawyer. He worked from 1923 as a professor at the University of Tokyo and was 1950-1960 President of the Supreme Court of Japan, and from 1961 to 1970 Judge at the International Court of Justice.
Life
Kotaro Tanaka was born in 1890 in Kagoshima and worked according to a study of the Law, from which he graduated in 1915 at the University of Tokyo, for a short time in the Japanese Ministry of the Interior. In 1917, he joined the University of Tokyo, where he was first promoted lecturer in business law and, according to research stays in the years of 1919 and 1922 in the USA, England, France, Italy and Germany, in 1923 professor.
After the end of World War II he was from May 1946 to January 1947 Education Minister in the first cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru and 1947-1950 Member of the Upper House of the Japanese Parliament, where he was part of the Group Ryokufūkai. From 1950 to 1960 he served as president of the Supreme Court of Japan. At the end of 1960 he was elected as a judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where he worked for a scheduled according to nine-year terms from 1961 to 1970.
For legal and philosophical point of view Kotaro Tanaka was a representative of the natural law, which he regarded as a metaphysical basis of international law. He died in Tokyo in 1974.
Awards
Tanaka Kotaro was from 1941 the Imperial Academy of Japan, from 1961 internationally as an honorary member of the American Society of International Law and as of 1967 the Institut de Droit on. In addition, he received the 1934 Asahi Prize, 1960 the Order of Culture in 1964 the Order of the Rising Sun first class and first class in 1970 with Paulownienblüte and posthumously at his death the Grand Cross of the Order of the Chrysanthemum.