Hanyang University Korean Legal History Research Center Publishes Translated Volume of Modern Korean Civil Court Rulings!

● A comprehensive collection of litigation records that reveal the legal life and legal culture of Koreans during the modern period.
● The only extant source that enables an understanding of the transition from traditional to modern litigation.
● Litigation records were transcribed, digitized, and translated into modern Korean to promote the study of Korean legal history.


Hanyang University Korean Legal History Research Center (Director: Professor Seung-Il Lee, Department of History) has published Translated Modern Korean Civil Court Rulings (Volumes 16–30), a collection that vividly documents Korea’s modern judicial system and legal life. Following their 2021 publication of translated civil court rulings issued between 1895 and March 1908, Professor Seung-Il Lee’s research team at Hanyang University has now released a new series covering approximately 4,000 civil court rulings issued from March 1908 to December 1909, along with about 500 Japanese-language civil court rulings produced between the opening of Korea’s ports and 1907 by the Japanese consulates in Korea, the Residency-General, and the Japanese Legal Affairs Bureau. The team transcribed the original texts, digitized them, and translated them into modern Korean.

Although modern Korean civil court rulings have been the only available sources for understanding Koreans’ civil litigation and legal life, they have remained largely unexplored in academic research. This is because, despite the massive scale of 405 volumes, only a portion of the rulings was made public in 2008, and many of the rulings were written in cursive script that is difficult to decipher. To address this issue, Hanyang University Korean Legal History Research Center transcribed the original texts, entered them digitally, and translated them into modern Korean, making the materials more accessible to legal scholars.

The translated volumes published this time consist of judicial records—including court judgments, rulings, orders, conciliation records, and interrogation transcripts—produced by the so-called modern courts established under the Court organization Act enacted in December 1907. Civil litigation during this period was conducted under the Civil and Criminal Procedure Rules enacted by the Japanese on July 13, 1908, and therefore differs in character from earlier civil proceedings. A comparative analysis of these court rulings with those produced in earlier periods would offer important insights into the colonial transformation of Korea’s judicial system.

Translated Modern Korean Civil Court Rulings (Volumes 16–30) was carried out from 2018 to 2021 with research support from the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies and was published in a total of 15 volumes by Minsokwon Publishing. Professor Seung-Il Lee, head of the project and professor in the Department of History at Hanyang University, described the collection as “a valuable resource that clearly demonstrates the legal transition from traditional to modern litigation. Although these court rulings are fundamental materials for studying Korean legal history and the everyday lives of the people, their use had long been limited because most of them were written in semi-cursive or cursive script. With this publication, we hope to greatly promote further research in areas such as modern Korean history, legal history, economic history, and social history.”

Participants in the project included Professor Seung-Il Lee (Department of History, Hanyang University); Dr. Myung-Jong Lee (Ph.D. in History, Hanyang University); Research Professor Byung-Moo Jeon (Institute for the Humanities, Gangneung-Wonju National University); Professor Wan Park (Department of Japanese Studies, Sookmyung Women’s University); Dr. Min-Seok Kim (Department of History, Hanyang University); Baek-Kyung Kim (doctoral candidate in Law, Seoul National University); Professor Guk Jo (Department of History, Sungshin Women’s University); and Do-Hyun Ahn (doctoral candidate, University of Tokyo).

For inquiries: Professor Seung-Il Lee (blueat89@hanmail.net)

2025-07-11