Hisashi Owada (小和田 恆 Owada Hisashi, born September 18, 1932) is a Judge on the International Court of Justice, former Japanese diplomat, and father of Crown Princess Masako.

Hisashi Owada was born in Niigata, Japan in 1932. After earning a B.A. from the University of Tokyo in 1955, he attended the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom where he earned a law degree in 1956. Upon completion of his education, he returned to Japan and entered the country's Foreign Service in 1955 serving in various posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo and Japan's embassies in Russia and the United States, the United Nations, and the OECD. From 1976 to 1978, he served as Private Secretary to Takeo Fukuda, the Prime Minister of Japan. He served as Japanese Ambassador to the OECD from 1988 to 1989 before returning to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he served as Deputy Minister until his promotion to Vice-Minister in 1991 serving until 1993. From 1994 to 1998, he served as Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations, where he served until his appointment to the International Court of Justice in 2003.

In addition to his Foreign Service career, Owada has also served as a law professor for three decades at the University of Tokyo, Harvard Law School, New York University Law School, Columbia Law School, Hague Academy of International Law, Waseda University, and the University of Cambridge.

In 1993, his daughter, Masako Owada, a diplomat in her own right, married Crown Prince Naruhito, the heir to the Japanese Chrysanthemum throne.

External links

• International Court of Justice Biography
• Japanese Imperial Household Agency