Abstract
Forum shopping has been the subject of a wide range of studies in the area of contemporary practitioners in maritime law. Less evident has been a discussion of the long history of maritime forum shopping, in particular in diverse legal mechanisms of East Asia.
After the reunification of Japan in 1600, Chinese and European merchants were seeking to exploit Tokugawa law and carve out a space in which they could operate as plaintiffs in cases that had taken place far away from Japanese coasts. It is worth noting that Chinese plaintiffs were much more successful than Europeans.
East Asia was an active hub for forum shopping and the legal forum across the region developed independently of European law.