In general, the Indonesia and Japan relationship has been established for more than 50 years, but intensive legal cooperation between the two countries has been conducted for less than 15 years.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency has dispatched legal experts and Japanese lawyers such as Tsutomu Hiraishi, Sozaburo Mitamayama Kawata, and Tamaki Kakuda to Jakarta since 2003. And JICA has invited many judges and lawyers to participate in training. One of the most important contributions from Japan was the implantation of Japanese court-connected mediation (wakai) into the Indonesian legal system.
Although there are some court-connected mediation systems in various jurisdictions, Indonesia prefers to adopt the wakai system, since it is more suitable for Indonesia. In Japan, it has been quite effective in reducing the number of civil disputes since its establishment in 1923.