Review of Prof. Satoshi Narihara

My Research Stay at the Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law, the University of Vienna by Satoshi NARIHARA

I was staying at the Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law, at the University of Vienna as a Guest Professor and a Professorial Guest Researcher from June 2024 to September 2024.

I am an associate professor of information law at Kyushu University in Japan. My University has an academic partnership with the University of Vienna. I attended joint online conferences between the two universities. So, I had been interested in a research stay at the University of Vienna. When I asked Prof. Nikolaus Forgó to let me visit his Department as a visiting scholar during my sabbatical, he kindly accepted my proposal.

I had been staying at the Harvard-Yenching Institute in Cambridge, the United States, from last August to this May. After that, I moved to Vienna. I stayed at the University of Vienna to study European information law and compare it with Japanese information law and U.S. information law.

In June, I taught my lecture on an Introduction to Japanese Information Law at the Faculty of Law. In my lecture, I considered media law, data protection law, platform regulation, and AI regulation in Japan, comparing them with corresponding laws and regulations in the European Union. I was surprised when I realized that many students and young scholars were interested in Japanese culture, society, law, and especially information law in Japan. I enjoyed the intensive discussion with students and young scholars in my class. Thanks to discussions with them, I recognized the similarities and differences between Japanese information law and European information law.

I attended many interesting events and lectures at the Department during my stay, including the lecture on the new European Commission and its Digital Policy, the lecture on technology and ethics, and the conference on legal linguistics. I also attended the Symposium on Transferring data out of the European Union at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Their discussions were helpful and insightful for my research. I conceived the recent development of data protection law, AI regulation, and platform regulation in the EU under the EU’s digital strategy and their political, social, and philosophical backgrounds. Furthermore, I enjoyed my research utilizing the rich resources of great libraries at the University. During my stay, Prof. Forgo kindly invited me, my wife, and my son, to lunch with him, his wife, and other colleagues at the department. We enjoyed the conversations and discussions with them.

I also enjoyed many concerts, operas, and museums in Vienna. I enriched my understanding of the cultural and social background of European information law due to my stay in Vienna.

I’d like to express my sincere thanks to Prof. Nikolaus Forgó, Ms. Saskia Kaltenbrunner, Ms. Theresa Henne, and other colleagues in the Department. I hope we keep in touch and have further collaboration in the future.