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Sussex Law Professor delivers international law colloquium attended by Japan’s State Minister of Justice
By: Heather Stanley
Last updated: Monday, 10 November 2025
Prof Shute had overall responsibility for the event as President of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (IPPF).
The Minister of Justice is in the middle of this image with Prof Shute to his left and the Director of UNAFEI to his right. On the far left is the Secretary General of the IPP and the Treasurer of the IPPF.
Prof Shute is pictured in the centre of a group comprising IPPF Council members and members of the Japanese contingent.
Prof Shute is shown with Mr Yoshimitsu YAMAAUCHI, Director of UNAFEI & Mr Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC’s Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Stephen Shute, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice and former Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Sussex, led a major four-day international colloquium on Preventing Recidivism in October 2025 in Tokyo, Japan. It was attended by the Japanese State Minister of Justice, Mr KOMURA Masahiro, who delivered a welcome address.
Professor Shute had overall responsibility for the event as President of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation (IPPF). The colloquium was convened by the IPPF in partnership with the Japanese Ministry of Justice and the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute (UNAFEI). It was held at the latter’s headquarters in Akishima City, Tokyo.
In addition to opening the event, Professor Shute delivered the keynote address on the first day of the Colloquium and gave the closing address on the fourth day.
In the State Minister’s welcome address, he emphasized how preventing recidivism is one of the main challenges in criminal justice and a matter of growing international interest. He expressed Japan’s intention to work closely with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and, through the activities of UNAFEI, to promote the Kyoto Model Strategies once they are adopted by the UN General Assembly.
Other speakers at the colloquium included Mr Yoshimitsu YAMAAUCHI; the Director of UNAFEI; Mr Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC’s Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific; and two high-level officials from the Japanese Ministry of Justice: Mr YOSHIHIRO Motonari, the Director of the Prison Service, and Dr KATSUTA Satoshi, the Director of the Supervision Division in the Rehabilitation Bureau. There was also a visit to a prison and a Halfway House.
The roots of the IPPF/FIPP lie with the International Penitentiary Commission (IPC) which was formed after an International Congress held in London in 1872 where the decision was taken to create a ‘permanent international committee to communicate with the various governments, and to draw up a uniform scheme of action’. The IPC become the International Penal and Penitentiary Commission (IPPC) in 1929 which itself became the IPPF in 1951. It was in 1951 that the International Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (the ‘Crime Congress’), which the IPPF’s predecessor bodies had organised from 1872 and 1950, passed to the UN. The next Crime Congress will be held in Abu Dhabi in the UAE in April 2026 and the IPPF’s Japan colloquium was designed to feed into that event.
Since taking its current organizational form in 1951, the IPPF has conducted research and produced publications on crime prevention and criminal justice and has convened its international colloquium which is now held in different countries approximately every three years.
Professor Stephen Shute said: “I was delighted that the IPPF was able to convene this significant colloquium in Tokyo last month in partnership with the Japanese Ministry of Justice and UNAFEI. After two years of detailed planning, the Colloquium brought a wealth of high-level expertise from across the world to bear on the important topic of reducing reoffending in UN member states.
“The discussion at the Colloquium was rich and constructive and the outputs will now be taken forward to the upcoming UN Crime Congress in Abu Dhabi.”