On March 29, 2021, Mr Satoshi Nakanishi, Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, met with members of the experts committee of the IAFOR research project on preventing and responding to the outbreak and the spread of infectious diseases on cruise ships, and officially received the final report at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo.
At the outset, the chair of the experts committee, Professor Emeritus Yoshiho Ikeda of Osaka Prefecture University, officially submitted the final report of the research project. Parliamentary Vice-Minister Nakanishi expressed his gratitude to the experts committee for the vigorous efforts for the research toward producing the report. He also stated that Japan, as a country which had unique experiences, should share the lessons learned, good practices and desirable international framework for response with the international community, and that this report serves as a foundation to fill the role. Thereafter, other members of the experts committee also explained the report from their own expertise.
Following unprecedented cases of the spread of new infectious diseases on cruise ships last year, this project was commissioned to IAFOR by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in order to develop an international framework aiming at preventing and responding effectively to similar cases in the future. The submitted final report was produced based on interdisciplinary discussions of experts in various areas.
IAFOR Chairman and CEO, Dr Joseph Haldane, said that he was very proud of the results of the research project and thanked the Vice-Minister and representatives of the experts committee for their hard work: “This is a major piece of interdisciplinary research, which we hope will have a major impact on international public policy as we come together to fight the global pandemic, and look towards cultivating resilience going forward.” He also said that this project was “a great testament to the international research network that IAFOR has built over the past decade” and to the “great work of the IAFOR Research Centre, and its Research Director, Haruko Satoh” through which the project was coordinated. He also thanked “the institutions and the many different collaborators who had worked on this project globally”, and who are listed below.
Pictured from left-right are Professor Mariko Kawano, Waseda University; Dr Joseph Haldane, Chairman and CEO of IAFOR; Professor Atsuko Kanehara, Sophia University; Professor Emeritus Yoshiho Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture University; Vice-Minister Satoshi Nakanishi; Professor Toshiya Hoshino, Former Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations and Executive Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre at Osaka University, and; Ambassador Keichi Ono, Assistant Minister and Director General of Global Issues.
The full report, “Toward Safe and Healthy Trans-border Cruises: International Challenges for Building Resilient and Trusted Ships and Ports” is available for download in English and Japanese.
Note: Parts of this report are drawn from a press release of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Project Members
The Japan Experts Committee
Yoshiho Ikeda (Chair)
Emeritus Professor, Osaka Prefecture University
Former President and Current Secretary-General, The Academic Society for Cruise and Ferry, Japan
Toshiya Hoshino
Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University
Atsuko Kanehara
President, Japanese Society of International Law
Professor, Sophia University
Mariko Kawano
Professor, Waseda University
Atsushi Sunami
Chairman, The Sasakawa Peace Foundation
President, Ocean Policy Research Institute
Kazuhiro Tateda
Professor, Toho University
President, Japanese Association of Infectious Diseases
Koji Wada
Professor, International University of Health and Welfare
Research and Coordination
Haruko Satoh (Research Coordinator)
Co-Director, IAFOR Research Centre
Visiting Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University
Alexander Pratt (Administrative Coordinator)
The International Academic Forum
Research Assistants and Coordinators
IAFOR Research Centre
Christian Klinke
Shu Uchida
Carmina Untalan
Anoma van der Veere
The International Academic Forum
Mirai Shiina
Overseas Research Collaborators (Report Authors)
East-West Center, Washington D.C., United States
Satu Limaye
Matthew Sullivan
Peter Valente
The Netherlands Institute of International Relations-Clingendael, Netherlands
Maaike Okano-Heijmans
Feline Schutjes
Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Remco van de Pas
The Bartlett Real Estate Institute, University College London, United Kingdom
Evangelia Chrysikou
Eva Hernandez Garcia
Eleftheria Savvopoulou
The Academic Society for Cruise & Ferry, Japan (Report Authors)
Nobuo Akai
Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, Japan
Hiroyuki Hashimoto
Associate Professor, University of Hyogo, Japan
Kanae Musha
Professor, Sapporo University, Japan
Yoshiho Ikeda
Emeritus Professor, Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
Yurie Saito
Associate Professor, Chukyo University, Japan
Naoya Umeda
Professor, Osaka University, Japan
Michio Yamada
Vice-president, The Japan Society for Nautical Research, Japan
Other Collaborators (Report Authors)
David Gore
IAFOR Research Centre
Rodrigue Majoie Abo
Osaka University, Japan
Advisors
Nobuo Akai
Professor, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, Japan
Dimitros Buhalis
Department of Tourism and Hospitality, Bournemouth University, United Kingdom
Theodoros Constantinidis
The Democritus University of Thrace, Greece
Christos Hadjichristodoulou
University of Thessaly, Greece; Joint Action Coordinator, EU Healthy Gateways
Barbara Mouchtouri
University of Thessaly, Greece
Alexis Papathanassis
Co-Director, Institute of Maritime Tourism, Bremerhaven University of Applied Science, Germany
Robert Beckman
Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore, Singapore
In Support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
