Japan’s corporate laws should be reformed to make the country’s rules on independent directors clearer, the Asian Corporate Governance Association says.

The lobby group used a new position paper on governance reform to argue that Japan’s current legal definition of what constitutes an “outside director” is “weak and often confusing to foreign investors and others.”

The ACGA called for listed companies to bring independent voices into the boardroom and to enable their boards to play more of a strategic oversight role.

More Japanese companies have appointed independent directors in recent years, the ACGA says, but often this has been a compliance move to please regulators.

A company with a board of ten directors should have at least three independent directors if their contribution is to be worthwhile, the ACGA says; companies with smaller boards should be able to get by with two.