[Recent Developments]

1.(JFBA Activities)
As the second associate left the firm as of the end of March 2001(which in some sense was inevitable due to a rather special area of the firm's practice), our lawyer, Kazuhiko Kokusho, has naturally kept busy all along. It was in this situation that he went on two pro bono missions to the United States.

(1) First, April 1 (Sunday) to April 7 (Saturday) of 2001, a group of 6 lawyers out of about 40 Disabled's Affairs Subcommittee went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the delegation of the JFBA's Human Rights Protection Committee to research and study American legal as well as social institutions for the Disabled. Another small group of JFBA's lawyers visited Britain on a comparable mission simultaneously as commissioned by the JFBA's Human Rights Protection Committee:as is generally known, JFBA holds each year Human Rights Protection Rally with a couple of specific themes for the symposia held as a part of the Rally's program. In fact it is the biggest annual event of this genuinely autonomous national association of lawyers, standard-bearers of Human Rights Protection.
One of such themes for last November's Nara Convention was the Protection and anti-discrimination of the Disableds. Lawyers in the Human Rights Protection Committee are, many of them, ardent advocates of legislation of anti-discrimination statutes and have contributed to the movement over the years, and in the course of comparative study of the law they have found a significant shortcoming in our system in comparison to those of the U.S. and U.K. This is how they voted for the commissioning of mission.
Then came the request to JFBA's International Human Rights Committee to which our lawyer Kokusho is a member for interpreting assistance and upon the Committee chairwoman's request and solicitation, he decided to take up the mission and went along with 6 disabled's law specialty lawyers who are not necessarily fluent in English.
While this was a completely good will work for him, it was nonetheless a very memorable as well as instructive participation.
First of all, there was more than enough to learn in this particular subject of law, which made him render this translation service humbly. Second, during this trip he ran into six peers who are active in an area wholly different from where he does his work, some of whom left in him a considerable imprint (there was only one disabled lawyer who suffered from polio in boyhood and is wheelchaired).
Thus, for four days, he acted as the interpreter for the delegation while they were in Philadelphia, where majority of time was spent in listening to lecturerers, mostly lawyers, and also in response to their questions in expounding on the equivalent system in Japan.
Upon returning home, our lawyer Kokusho got three thank-you e-mails from the six participants, and on the eve of flight back they took him to a fancy steak-house for treat.

(2) After a week's stay at home from his trip to Philadelphia, on April 16 (Monday) of 2001 he found himself back again on an airplane bound for New York. This time around it was for JFBA activities again. We must back up a little bit why he went to the JABA-ABA meetings of April 19 to 20 in Washington, D.C. This was a part of JFBA's Working Group activities for the domestic legislative actions relative to the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. As was described in this website earlier, he attended twice the U.N. Ad hoc Committee meetings in Vienna for the Convention (December 1999, 6th Conference and July 2000, 10th and final Conference).
It is in this vein that he was made a member of the Working Group, and thus sent to meet the ABA delegates on the money-laundering issues. Now, FATF intensified and expanded the anti-money-laundering program in 1996, and one such expansion was to include the professionals such as lawyers as the possible party saddled with reporting requirement of suspicious transactions in connection with money laundering. Now that the Anti-Organized Crime Convention was signed up by 121 nations and the anti-money laundering combat is to be staged with increased vigor, the implementation of new regime obligating the lawyers to report on suspicious transactions of anti-money laundering became a hot issue. EU took the lead in this connection as it had drawn up a draft bill, submitted to EU Parliament and eventually adopted it, requiring professionals to report on "suspicious transactions".
Menaced by a possible setback in such as the attorney-client privileges and eventual ill-effect upon human rights protection, sentiments of lawyers of nations world-wide have been highly stirred. In this context, U.S. Department of Justice contacted our Ministry of Law hinting that whatever legislative measures might be taken, such measures would have better be discussed among the practicing lawyers themselves on both sides of the Pacific. Thus, the ABA-JFBA meetings were planned and carried out represented by three members each plus there was one delegate sent on behalf of CCBE (EU lawyers' association)).
JFBA delegates flew back on April 22 (Sunday) upon finishing full two-day session with a significantly fruitful result, and first quick report was made on April 25 to the Working Group.

(3) Continuing on his participation in JFBA (Working Group)-ABA (Taskforce) dialogue and liaison, he was sent to the U.S. (Chicago) in August 2001 again, this time it being to attend ABA's 2000 annual conference (from JFBA Working Group, one other member was sent). On this second opportunity of personal contact with ABA Taskforce (same as April 2001, co-headed by Ed Krauland of Steptoe& Johnson and Jim Roselle of Bank One Corporation along with a significant member Bruce Zagaris), he not only met but spoken face to face with Theodore S. Greeneberg, Special Counsel, International Money Laundering, Department of Justice of the U.S.A. for over two hours over lunch at the Oak Terrace of the Drake (hotel). That was August 4, 2001(Saturday), and on Sunday late afternoon, ABA International Law& Practice Section (ILPS)'s Anti-Money Laundering Task Force (AML-TF) held a seminar on "Gate-Keeper Issues" attended by over 100 aggressive audiences from not just U.S. but Canada. U.K., Germany and France. The speakers were Ted, John Fish (CCBE; or equivalent of federation of 18 EU bar associations representing over 500,000 lawyers), Prof. Haggard of University of Pennsylvania, as coordinated by Ed and Jim.

Needless to say that a full report from this Chicago meeting was due (on August 9), right after his return home, which also included a few Ministry of Law officials as was habitual these days. He was also included in the mailing list of ABA's AML-TF as Ed had been suggesting. Indeed, after the Chicago meeting quite a few e-mail exchanges have taken place between (mostly) Ed and himself imparting information on what has transpired on each side to the other. As to some publications he made on this Gatekeeper issue, see below 3. He had submitted to the JFBA Working Group right after the April meeting with ABA a report urgently calling for the efforts to explore all available paths to educate and enlighten the JFBA members with the awareness of gate-keeper issues, upon which JFBA decided on various ways of campaigning, which included contributing to law journals, issuance of handouts and leaflets, and holding symposiums. This resulted in his writing articles to NBL and other journals on the gate-keeper problem and speaking at the symposium sponsored by JFBA on October 15, 2001.

2. (Tokyo Bar Association (TBA))

(1) Almost two years will pass at the end of March, 2002 since the internet law workshop was set up (its organizational meeting was held on May 18, 2000) for the internet law study within TBA as its 14th official body, and over 70 have acquired membership showing a remarkable record for the second year activities. A symposium for fiscal 2001 was held as a part of TBA summer outing under the internet law group's sponsorship in early July at Tokyo Bay area (Urayasu). Thanks to the cooperation of other members, the workshop has by grade been able to shape up and now we have two deputy chairs.
Some of the monthly events include METI's and former MOPT's officials briefing and exchange of opinions on the bills and acts relating to "electronic transactions", other important figures from various groups including system engineers.
Somewhat related to the internet law, our lawyer Kokusho's eighth book authorship came into being entitled "electronic information transactions law in U.S." (expounding UCITA).

In June 2001, the Work Shop invited Mr. Yoshiharu Kawabata, who spoke on the enormous risks our society was facing because of internet. In July, 2001, as a voluntary participation in the Tokyo Bar Association's Summer Retreat at the Sheraton Grande (Tokyo Bay Area), the Work Shop held a symposium entitled "e-transactional law", "with five speakers including a METI official and Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. researcher, as he acted as coordinator before an audience of a little under 40 (in a small seminar room). The program which drew the largest audience was also for a little under 40 attendants and was the corporate law workshop, reflecting the repeated revisions of the law in recent years (the fiscal 2001 saw three legislations in this area of the law with a couple others taking effect during the period from the previous enactments).

(2) On Monday, April 23, lawyer Kokusho was formally elected and appointed to chair the TBA's International Relations Committee. The meeting of the chairs of various committees of TBA (about 50 of them) was held on April 23rd at which he expressed his thoughts on how to push ahead TBA's international activities in this globalization times at the dog-year pace.

Perhaps two big events for this fiscal year 2001 of the Committee are:
(a) the change of its name and broadening of its objectives which he prompted and carried through by appearing in August 2001 at the House of Delegates' regular meeting to explain the backgrand and reason; and

(b) his participation in the "Conference of the World Big City Bar Leaders" held mostly in the premises of The Association of the Bar of the New York City in New York from November 8 to 10, 2001.

The Conference was attended by over 60 lawyers from 16 World Big City Bar Associations (mostly in the person of each president and in case of the Tokyo Bar, represented by him, in his capacity as the Chair, International Committee in the absence of its president).
Most remarkably, as Tokyo Bar was one of the four co-convenors of the Conference along with New York, London and Paris Bar Associations, he and his wife sat at the main table with the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, at the gala dinner at the Harvard Club with E. Davis, ABCNY's president with his wife, while Mr. Breyer was with his wife and a daughter, and he sitting next to her spoke somewhat extensively with his wife (on such as her brother with a great deal of exposure to Japan).

(3) Strictly speaking, not as singly-brought-about event, but as a coalesced program, mention must be made about the Tokyo Three Bar Associations' Joint Seminar held on December 12, 2001 at the "Creo" hall. As the Tokyo Bar Association was in charge of the seminar as opposed to the Reception afterwards, he moderated the progress and evolution of discussions and discourses by six speakers, including two Americans, and as he learned after the seminar was over and during the Reception, its was a great success, ending in a high mood.


3 (Daily Works)

Our firm (Kokusho) represented 11 residents whose residences are close to the pond "Gamaike" in a rare move of pursuing environmental litigation, while thousand of neighboring people were rallying to defend the pond, the nature, the underground water and the hereditary site by holding meetings between the developer and the residents' union at the Minato-ward office at the intermediation of Minato-ward construction as well as education section. 3 lawyers including our Kokusho have filed for preliminary injunction of the project of 6-storied apartment building advanced by a Mori-Building group company. Some newspapers such as Yomiuri have reported this frequently in their articles. This case was put to a disappointing end due to the paucity of environment-awareness on the part of the bureaucratic judiciary.

4(Publications)

(1) The year 2001 marked the biggest publication year ever for him. The number of publications hit the record high: two hardcovered books, several number of articles on NBL, law journal, and three articles on Zaikei Shouhou, another law and economy journal, widely read among the government officials.

(2) The two books are:
(a) Revised U.S. Secured Transactions Law (UCC Article 9); and
(b) U.S. Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act of America (UCITA), both published from Syadan Houjin Syouji Houmu Kenkyukai, for public-welfare corporation in February 2001, and June 2001.

The former is a product of over 15 years' snail pace and on and off study, and the latter has been manuscripted in only a few months' period.

The former seems being read by a considerable circle of government officials curious to know the U.S. system on secured transactions law and it led to his being commissioned to further carry out the research of the law which included study (tour to U.S.) in December 2001 by such as interviews and on-site inspections.

(3) While he had made quite a few contributions to NBL in 2000 mostly on e-transactions law of Europe and America, in 2001 he made two contributions to both NBL and Zaikei Shohou. The former relates to one gatekeeper article and one privacy law issue, and the latter deals with one e-transactions law and two gatekeeper articles.


Recent Activities

1. Last year-end, Kazuhiko Kokusho was asked, and he accepted, to become a professor at the law school to be newly established with the Toyo University. The subjects he will be teaching as requested are three each once a week for 90 minutes compatible with his practice at his law office:

The Law of International Financial Transactions;

The Law of International Security Interest and Mortgage; and

The Law of The Practical International Contracts.

The law school has already completed the entrance exam in 3 groups of different dates of A, B, C with its upshot showing that it was the most popular law school nationwide.

2. The Yomiuri national newspaper on its February 25^th 2004 issue first page below in the ad column carried an ad for the book entitled “Birth of America and the Lives of Heroes” or “Amerika no Tanjyo to Eiyutachi no syogai”. This book is a book in the new genre for Kazuhiko Kokusho who has so far published 8 books but nothing other than in the law, it being at once a historical novel describing the U. S. A. as it became independent in the wake of the revolutionary war and the joint biography of the first 3 presidents of U. S. A. The publishing company seems getting some orders from libraries.

3. Our lawyer Kazuhiko Kokusho went to Hanoi, Vietnam, from January 20th to 25th 2003. This is a part of the JFBA Program to help CLMV build their own legal institutions regarding IT and e-commerce while attaining a degree of harmony amongst the nations of ASEAN PLUS 3.

4. CLMV stands for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Actually, our lawyer Kazuhiko Kokusho is leader of the 5 lawyers' team for Vietnam. He along with other teammate met officials of various governmental agencies in Hanoi and has completed a report. He will make a speech based on this report in the upcoming seminar in Singapore (May 29th, May 30th) and be a panelist in the ensuing relative discussions.

5. He will shortly leave for Paris, France to attend the World Big City Bar Association Leaders' Conference. This is the second time for such associations' Conference to be held following the first one in New York in November of 2001. on both occasions, he represents the Tokyo Bar Association as one of the 4 co-sponsors of the Conference with others being New York, London and Paris.
He will speak on March 14th 2003 in the Paris Conference on the gate-keeper issue. The paper he has prepared for this address is viewable in this website.


Table of Contents
[Discussion]

1. Background
2. Rule-making
3. Legal Implications
4. Our Efforts


Money-laundering and Organized Crime

1. Background
(1) OECD, the group of 29 rich nations and 2 regions of the world, has since 1989 pushed ahead a global-size campaign against money-laundering through its provisionally set-up organ FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money-Laundering), first focusing on monies related to narcotics and psychotropic substances, then broadening it to monies derived from all serious crimes.
(2) Back then FATF was formed by the initiative of the G-7 Nations, separate from the UN System (the United Nations and a whole host of its satellites and affiliated organizations comprehensively so called) and not based on the UN Charter. Not only that but FATF has consistently been prompted to its activities by the G-7 Nations to the effect that it is in fact the vehicle to carry out the plans against money-laundering as decided by the G-7 Nations.
(3) So is there no organizations and no program within the UN System to combat money-laundering? Oh, Yes, there is. UNDCP/ UNCPCJD (the United Nations Drug Control Programme/ the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division) is the name, and the Global Programme Against Money Laundering (GPML) is the program. This bifurcation may give you a little confusion, but in the real world FATF, i.e. OECD, is a far bigger being in controlling not just the nations' policies but consequently the behavior of the crime rings and the terrorist groups around the world whose virulent activities and transnational organized crimes are threatening the people's lives and properties therby sagging the economy of all nations.
(4) Recently it was reported that UNDCP/ UNCPCJD and Japan have met to take an action against North Korea in condemning its drug production and sales. Bulk of drugs are being smuggled into Japan by North Korean vessels as that state tries to earn foreign currency through illicit drugs' and arms' production and sales. For a country like North Korea being non-member of OECD and a party to none of international agreements, conventions or pacts such as the Vienna Convention of 1988 or the Palermo Convention of 2000, neither the U.N. System nor the FATF is an effective machinery. As is the case of how to deal with the weapons of mass destruction it is ardently desired by most everybody that the world community has an effective policing and enforcement mechanism over such a state. But for now we seem to be in the throes of its creation.


2. Rule-making
(1) Commensurate with its nature as an informal international governmental organization, OECD, and therefore FATF, has operated basically on the self rule by group members, i.e. peer oversight as you can see from the title, 40 Recommendations of FATF. itself a remote idea from rule-making, let alone universal legislation. In this respect it is not like a U.N. convention, other multilateral treaty or EU Directive (regional community law-making through treaty). FATF did begin that way with its finite life of 5 years from 1989. However, as FATF has by time turned into a defacto perpetual existence, so has the 40 Recommendations of FATF grown into a defacto law with a significant enforcement power by way of imposing sanctions underscored by the authority of G-7.
(2) Most recently lawyers all over the world has been gripped with a sense of urgent danger, as FATF has taken steps to further amend its 40 Recommendations (already amended back in 1996) to include the professionals such as lawyers as the addressee of the Recommendations. If effectuated and validated, the new 40 Recommendation would have the force to hold lawyers criminally guilty unless lawyers become the informant of their clients' secrecy when it comes to the suspicious transactions (the STR, suspicious transactions reporting obligation). Heretofore, the banks were the central component in this core device (STR) for the anti-money-laundering combat. The new Recommendations are due to be issued June of 2003. Now you would want to ask, How come an informal organization such as FATF can enforce the STR obligation against lawyers?
Here is my inchoate explanation:
‡@ the U.N., world community's formal organization, is yet to have such a rule that binds not just financial institutions but professionals generally;
‡A while on the other hand we are confronted with the ever-growing ignition of transnational brutal and heinous crimes' ammunition including the 9.11.;
‡B it would be extremely difficult for any OECD-member nation to not comply with the new Recommendations by legislating like domestic laws much less to disregard it.
So what we see here is the gap between the urgency of the real world and the delayed rule-making on the part of formal world community.
Simply and somewhat rudimentarily set, this is why FATF now has an irresistibly powerful clutch over the uniform rule-making process through the constant meetings of G 7 to G 8 nations.
(3) Not that formal world community has done nothing. Contrarily,
‡@ the so-called Palermo Convention (December 2000, Palermo Italy, the Convention for the Prevention of Transnational Organized Crimes), as a part of formal rule-making by the U.N. has a couple of provisions referring to the possible control over the professionals' activities in connection with financial or investment affairs;
‡A The EU Directive enacted in October of 2001 imposes the STR obligation on lawyers and other professionals. An EU Directive being a convention among the EU's 15-member nations, this will be done as it obligates its members to take compliant legislative measures by June 2003.
I may hastily add that, the 15-member nations plus EU itself as a region amounting to 16 votes, the controlling majority on the OECD arena, the new FATF Recommendations would not fall short of having a power of universal law, compelling at least 29 rich nations, if not every country on the face of the earth, to adopt the similar rules. What you will be seeing here is a gradual merger between formal and informal efforts by the world community in the rulemaking to condemn and denounce transnational organized crimes and their money-laundering activities.
(4) Now you know what all this means. Harmonization of provincial laws! And that pushed ahead through 2-way system of formal and informal international organizations of governments. Those of you who are still skeptical about this to occur, and say "Harmonization would not come so soon", I must bring home to you the fact of the matter that we already have quite a few countries in the world who have enacted the laws in compliance with, or in some instances even harsher than, the EU Directive or the proposed new FATF Recommendations.
These are UK, New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Hong Kong, Norway (March 2003) and Canada (though disputed in the tribunal).
(5) So what are the required and sufficient elements to hold a lawyer guilty of violating the STR obligations? What happens if all is said and done, I mean if the FATF's proposed amendment came into force and most nations followed its suit and took legislative actions,? You will be found guilty in the light of the following requirements. Overall, these elements are pretty much the same to both the EU Directive and the FATF's amended Recommendations, although there may be a delicate difference in the actual wording. To be bound by the STR you must: first know or suspect a money-laundering act of your client plus other elements; second fail to report to the authority (inaction information-crime).
I have generally distinguished these elements into two:
‡@ positive requirements include that:
a lawyer is engaged at that time in certain activities such as assisting a client in financial and/or investment affairs;
‡A negative elements include that:
the information comes to the knowledge of a lawyer either in the process of legal advice or defending the client's interest in legal proceedings.
In sum, if you are engaged in assisting your client in financial and/or investment affairs, and are not in the process of either rendering legal advice or defending your client's rights or interest in legal proceedings when the information comes to your knowledge, you are out unless you report to the FIU.

3. Legal Implications of Gate-keeper Legislation
(1) An adversarial model of justice at large, and in particular an adversarial system of criminal justice, is the defining element of democratic society and the bedrock of free world. That is why we have prosecution confronted with defense lawyers. Simply stated, gate-keeper legislation would do no lesser harm than to eliminate this formula of prosecution versus defense lawyers scheme. Coupled with other central principles such as the right to counsel ( as in our Constitution article 34 for a suspect, and article 37, paragraph 3 for an indicted person), the right against self-incrimination( as in our Constitution article 38) and the presumption of innocence, this core system of the judiciary in a modern society works to defend, protect and further the fundamental human rights. The right to counsel can work effectively only when and where information lawyers get from their client is guarded and sealed off as confidential against outsiders, most importantly governmental powers, typically police or prosecution.
(2) Such confidentiality of attorney-client information can not keep on living unless the two premises are satisfied:
‡@ independence of the legal profession is institutionally guaranteed. Fortunately in most modern states, if free and democratic, this institutional independence and its corollary self-rule endorsed with high ethical standard, are to a considerable extent legally underscored and practiced;
‡A certain information between lawyer and client is either protected by legislation as the right of both lawyer and client as in a majority of civil law jurisdictions or regarded as enshrined in the sanctuary of so-called privilege of client as in most common law countries.
(3) Now, let us consider what are some of the intrinsic traits of gate-keeper legislation: basically, there are 2 flows:
‡@, flows of monies or monies' worth; and
‡A, flows of information.
The first monies flow is from those who commit predicate crimes and the knowledge is required of the recipient (or disposer, cooperater, etc.) of the monies. This is what is to be rightly called money-laundering. It is a derivative crime in relation to the predicate crimes. The gate-keeper legislation is not something that addresses such a money-laundering act itself. It is rather a to-be-made crime, an inaction, relating to information that such a money laundering act has taken, is taking or will take, place, inaction of not reporting it to the FIU. Unlike the money-laundering crime, the knowledge is not always necessary with a suspicion sufficient to incriminate you.
To the extent this inaction of not imparting information relates not to the predicate crimes (you do not even have to know what, when, where or how of the crimes), but to the derivative crime of money-laundering, it is a to-be-made crime, further down the road of the above 2 flows. Functionally analyzed, then, the essence of gate-keeper legislation could and would deprive and decimate this constitutional right to confidentiality or privilege (as it incapacitates our Constitution's article 38) by flatly negating the long-established and very basic rule by trying to compel lawyers to report suspicious information or improper activities of their client and thereby making lawyers serve as governmental informers.
Needless to say that this attempt, if realized as contemplated, would completely root up the basic architecture of protecting the fundamental human rights by ripping off the fabric of adversarial system, due process and right to counsel.
(4) I referred, a moment ago, to a high ethical standard as the corollary of self-rule, i.e. independence of our profession. Now allow me another few minutes while I would like to guide you through the texture of Japanese law in regard of both the lawyer ethics and self-rule.
‡@ I must first draw your attention to multifarious regulation on secrecy obligation of the lawyer in our country and to a few clauses from each of our Criminal Code (disclosure in its violation punishable as a crime), Criminal Procedural Code, Advocate's Act (disclosure to be sanctioned not as a crime but administratively by bar associations) and Lawyers' Ethics Rules. As you will see from what is provided for in these articles, our country being of a civil law jurisprudence, not only the client but the counsel has the statutory right to the confidentiality of client-to-counsel information under the Advocate's Act.
This brings us to the vital distinction of disclosures by a counsel of client's secrecy to the law enforcement agencies:
(a) disclosures compelled by the gate-keeper legislation; and
(b) disclosures voluntarily made by counsel.
Needless to say that in the (b) situation disclosure can occur only because the counsel's secrecy obligation comes to grips with his or her another obligation which may in some instances supercede the secrecy obligation, such as for the life of others( permissible disclosure).
Largely dependent upon the evaluation of all the relevant facts, this (whether a disclosure is permissible or else) requires a case by case decision, and in making the decision each individual counsel is expected to, and he or she must, have both a high standard of ethical values and a capacity of fair balancing of conflicting values.
When I joined the ABA annual meeting in August 2001 in Chicago, they decided to amend their rule �˜1.6 (f) only to limit such a permissible disclosure in the face of imminent danger to the life of others, but not in guard of other's economic interest (such as a victim of a scam).
‡A Now, I hasten to pass upon the second element, the institutional source and the enormous degree of self-rule accorded upon our profession:
As you see in combined reading of article 1, article 31 and article 33 of the Advocates Act, lawyers in our country are subject to the supervision only of their bar association in compliance with its ethics code. Unlike in Anglo-American jurisdictions, here the lawyers are supervised and disciplined not by the court but by their own peers , and not because they are the officers of the court, but because theirs is an entire and complete independence secured by the law as the central value and basic cornerstone of human rights and social justice.
‡B Such a genuine independence, such a great entrustment can, and should, be maintained and enhanced only with an incessant day-to-day self-awareness and endeavors on the part of each individual counsel to live up to the high level of ethics.
Although succinct, we have a set of rules each counsel must observe in the actual practice (see inter aria articles 22,23,24,25,26,29). Compared with such as ABA's model rules of professional conduct section 1.6, our code's article 23 may be looked at as lisping. But I must also tell you that everything in Japan is much far shorter than in the U.S. Our typical contract is usually 1 to 2 or 3 pages, not tens of pages.
Having said that I admit to its being short-tongued and that a lot depends on how we practitioners can weave out of this set of concise rules by way of interpretation and construction a new and persuasive rule of permissible disclosure as a middle ground of a permissible disclosure between banned disclosure and a compelled disclosure (needless to say that no right including the right to secrecy can indulge itself in abuse) .
I am not sure how persuasive or informative this is, but the book issued by JFBA on the Ethics Code in its commentary to article 20 paraphrases good reason in " without good reason" exemplarily as "where your client's intention to carry out a crime is clear, its execution is imminent and the foreseeable result of the execution will be very serious".

4. Our Efforts
(1) Turning our sight from OECD or EU to elsewhere, more particularly to America and Asia, both ABA (the single largest body of U.S. lawyers' association) and JFBA (Japan Federation of Bar Associations) are strongly opposed to the STR obligation on lawyers.
EU Parliament started debate on the EU Directive in late 1999 but its deliberation lingered on throughout 2000. In late 2000 and early 2001 U.S. Department of Justice contacted its counterpart in Japan. They said "Look, the EU will soon have this Directive. They will urge us, rest of the world, to play by the same rule. Would not it be worth while for the legal professions of our 2 nations to get together and interchange their views and ideas how to deal with this issue?"
In April 2001 as suggested by the Ministry of Justice, I went to Washington. D. C. along with 2 other JFBA delegates to talk with the delegates of ABA and a representative of CCBE. I also attended ABA's annual meeting in Chicago in August of 2001, where a few working group members of both ABA and JFBA met the U.S. Department of Justice official in charge of gate-keeper issue, who soon came to lead the FATF Working Group dealing with the amendment on the point of gate-keeper.
(2) FATF, in preparation of the revised 40 Recommendations forcing lawyers to be subjected to the STR obligation, released "Consultation Paper of May 30th 2002, providing for (i) the KYC (know you client) obligation or CID (client identification), (ii) record-keeping obligation; and (iii) the STR obligation, which included the so-called "no tip-off obligation". The Consultation Paper meant that every FATF member nation responded to it on the foregoing (i) to (iii) propositions by the end of August 2002.
JFBA delivered to FATF its response in writing supporting the imposition of above (i) and (ii) obligations, but strongly and clearly opposing to the (iii) obligation. Earlier on January 19th 2002, JFBA Board of Governors resolved in favor of fighting money-laundering by heightening awareness of, and enlightening and educating, its member lawyers (by such as preparing guidelines and manuals, holding seminars and special meetings), but in disfavor of the STR obligation of the profession.
We are told that ABA's House of Delegates would probably have voted almost in a similar fashion by now.
(4) Based on the responses in writing submitted from its member nations FATF held for once what FATF called a "Public Outreach" at the OECD headquarters on October 8th 2002, which I also attended along with 3 other JFBA delegates. We were together with other delegations from ABA, CCBE and Canada's federation, among others.
JFBA met with these delegations both prior and subsequent to the Outreach where we exchanged information, thoughts and confirmed where we could be united and concerted.
Very encouraging was the fact that on October 8th 2002 an overwhelming majority of bar associations from OECD member-nations expressed defining opposition to the proposed comprehensive imposition of the STR obligations while admitting to the importance of combating money-launderers and cooperating with the law-enforcement authority of the nations.
Having told you how our peers from various parts of the world have endeavored to fend off the pressure from FATF, the informal international anti-money-laundering machinery, I now turn to you, the leaders of bar associations from divergent background, some from EU, where the formal rule-making is under way based on the EU Directive, or from U.K., where you have an even stricter law already in place ready to be executed at any moment, and would like to hear a wide range of views and opinions including what the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights may rule on this very critical issue.