Address delivered by His Imperial Highness Prince Norihito Takamado, at Takayama
Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. I should like to express my thanks to you all for attending this opening ceremony, here in Takayama, I am particularly happy to welcome those of you who have traveled from other countries to be with us. I remember very well both of my previous attendances at this Symposium: the first was 12 years ago in Kanazawa and the second was 6 years later in
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Osaka. It gives me very great pleasure to be able to meet you again today. Legal medicine, which is closely linked with a number of interdisciplinary medical issues, is an extremely important academic subject for the achievement of social justice and the protection of human rights under the rule of law. Iunderstand that five special topics will be discussed during this present Symposium. Each of these topics raises important issues that are crucial to today’s complex society, including various ethical problems. Since I studied law when I was at university, I am looking forward very much indeed to listening to these discussions. May I express my thanks to all those members of the German and Japanese Societies of Legal Medicine who have worked so hard to make this Symposium possible. The initiative displayed by these young people, who have spared no effort in planning and organizing the event, is most encouraging and bodes well for the future of legal medicine. I am confident that frank and open discussions during this Symposium will bear full fruit and I sincerely hope that they will lead to further exchanges of scholars and researchers from around the world. Ladies and Gentlemen, I was informed that there would be some 400 attendants in this symposium including 200 from abroad. But we will be joined by another attendant later today, typhoon No. 21. He is a very big figure. He will talk loud and give us a lot of brainstorming. And I do hope that you will enjoy Japan’s traditional season screaming. Thank you very much.