For Immediate Release
Tokyo, February 6, 2002—Temple University, Japan Campus(TUJ)and the Temple University Law School are pleased and proud to announce that Lawrence Repeta, the director of the Temple Law Program in Japan and an associate dean of TUJ, has been awarded a prestigious Abe Fellowship. As an Abe Fellow, Professor Repeta will research public-interest organizations and their access to information held by government agencies.

Professor Repeta will record cases illustrating the successful use of freedom of information laws by public-interest organizations. These case studies will be distributed in countries, including Japan, that have recently adopted freedom of information laws. The goal of this fellowship-sponsored project is to promote greater citizen participation in public policy making.

The Abe Fellowship was launched in 1991 as a main component of Japan’s Center for Global Partnership (CGP). It is designed to encourage international, multidisciplinary research on topics of pressing global concern. The fellowship is named after the late Mr. Shintaro Abe, Japan’s former minister for foreign affairs. The CGP’s mandate is to help improve relations between Japan and the United States and to contribute to a better world through the cooperative efforts of both countries (http://www.cgp.org/cgplink/).

Speaking on TUJ’s behalf, Dean Patterson said, “We are proud that the CGP has selected a TUJ faculty member for this award. The award and the research project itself match TUJ’s devotion to conducting research and preparing students for a highly interdependent world.”

For nine months, from September 2003 to May 2004, Professor Repeta will conduct research at the National Security Archive (NSA), a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization located in the Gelman Library at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The NSA was founded in 1985 by a group of journalists and scholars and is the most active and successful noncommercial requester under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. In April 2000, the NSA won the George Polk Award for “piercing self-serving veils of government secrecy.” It is supported by publication revenues and private philanthropic organizations, such as the Carnegie Corporation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Ford Foundation (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/).

Professor Repeta is one of the founding directors of Information Clearinghouse Japan, a Tokyo-based nonprofit, nongovernmental organization advocating open government (http://www.clearing-house.org/). He also heads the Temple Law Program in Japan, the only American Bar Association (ABA) recognized program offering year-round courses in U.S. and international law in Japan. The program was established in 1994 and has provided training to hundreds of law students from Japan, the United States, and elsewhere (http://www.tuj.ac.jp/).

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