The EU-Japan Relation in the Field of Mutual Legal Assistance

Japan is one of the few third countries with which the EU has concluded an external agreement in the field of judicial cooperation in criminal matters (signed on the 30^th of November by the EU and on the 15^th of December 2009 by Japan). It is the first "self-standing" mutual legal assistance agreement between the EU and a non-EU country, in the sense that none of the Member States of the EU had previously concluded a bilateral agreement with Japan. In 2016, a formal evaluation of its implementation took place, showing that the agreement clearly boosted mutual legal assistance between Japan and EU MSs. Indeed, there has been a steady increase of cooperation. However difficulties remain. These appear to result from the differences existing in the level of human rights protection, mainly the existence and application of the death penalty in Japan and the lower level of procedural guarantees in the field of access to a lawyer. This contribution aims at analyzing these difficulties more thoroughly and study whether the EU has used the negotiations and, later on, the implementation of this agreement as an opportunity to push for a higher level of protection of human rights on the Japanese side. This will serve as a case study of the opportunity for and capacity of the EU to export its standards at the international level. It will allow to reflect on the challenges raised at EU level when developing its external relations in the field of cooperation in criminal matters.