Power Harassment: The Tort of Workplace Bullying in Japan

Abstract

As many American lawyers and advocates work toward reducing workplace bullying, they have come to rely on comparative legal perspectives to explain the shortcomings of American law on this critical economic and human rights issue. Though legal scholars have focused on Western European frameworks for anti-bullying legislation and so-called "moral harassment," there is a gap in the legal literature around the development of this idea in the Japanese context. This paper seeks to fill that gap by introducing English-language audiences to the developing Japanese workplace tort of "power harassment," through the comparative lens of American law.