Yasuhei Taniguchi served as a member of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body from 2000-2007. Professor Taniguchi is former president of the Japanese Association of Civil Procedure and until 2007 was vice-president of the International Association of Procedural Law. He is currently president of the Japan Association of Arbitrators. He is affiliated with various academic societies and arbitral organizations as arbitrator, including the International Council for Commercial Arbitration the ICC Institute of World Business Law, the International Law Association; the American Law Institute; the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association; the London Court of International Arbitration; the American Arbitration Association; the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre; the Chinese International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission; the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board; and the Cairo Regional Centre of Commercial Arbitration. He has also been an active arbitrator in the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Court of International Arbitration.

He taught at Kyoto University for 39 years and has been Professor Emeritus since 1998. He also has taught as Visiting Professor of Law in the United States (University of Michigan, University of California at Berkeley, Duke University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, New York University, and University of Richmond), in Australia (Murdoch University and University of Melbourne), at the University of Hong Kong and at the University of Paris XII.