Professor Yuji Shiroshita, Japan

LML Visiting Scholar

5 August 2015 – 31 October 2015

College Affiliation

Wolfson College

Research Focus

During his visit, Professor Shiroshita intends to investigate:

(1)  comparative regulatory frameworks for living organ transplants, with a particular focus on the UK and Japan;

(2)  the legal, moral and social significance of relatives’ refusal / consent to organ donation; 

(3)  the transplantation of sub-optimal and marginal organs as a response to organ shortage (e.g., organs from elderly donors, or donors with a medical history of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, malignancy, renal cysts, or potentially transmissible diseases).

Background

Professor Shiroshita is based at the Graduate School of Law, Hokkaido University, Japan. 

He specialises in criminal and medical law. In the field of medical law, he is interested in the regulation of organ transplantation, particularly transplantation of organs from living donors.

Unusually, donation from living donors is the primary source of transplantable organs in Japan, due to decades of debate in Japan over the definition of ‘brain’ death. Nevertheless, the Organ Transplant Act of Japan (1997, rev. 2009) principally concerns deceased donors only. Donation from living donors is essentially self-regulated by the medical profession and via administrative guidelines.