Demilitarization in the Contemporary World by Peter N. Stearns

Author:Peter N. Stearns [Stearns, Peter N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General, International Relations, Arms Control, Security (National & International), History, World
ISBN: 9780252037894
Google: 0ghsmwEACAAJ
Goodreads: 17885344
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2013-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

Japan’s Early Moves toward Constitutional

Reinterpretation Post–Cold War

Japan has been forced to devise a number of makeshift measures in the past two decades under its present constitution (promulgated 1946, in effect 1947) in order to enable JSDF overseas in response to global and regional security crises. The preamble of the constitution states Japanese ideals with regard to security:

We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationships, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world. We desire to occupy an honored place in an international society striving for the preservation of peace, and the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the earth. We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want.

Chapter 2, Article 9 of the constitution, “The Renunciation of War,” reads as follows:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Japanese policy makers originally interpreted Article 9 as prohibiting both offensive war and the right of national self-defense, but from the 1950s onward they have held to an interpretation allowing Japan, in line with its position as a sovereign state under the UN Charter, to exercise the right of individual self-defense (kobetsu-teki jieiken) to maintain military purposes for this purpose.6 Alongside its interpretation of Article 9 as permitting the right of individual self-defense, Japan maintained an additional interpretation prohibiting the exercise of the right of collective self-defense (shūdan-teki jieiken). Japan’s government recognizes that, as a sovereign state, under Article 7 of the UN Charter it possesses the inherent right of collective self-defense, but since 1954 the government has taken the position that the actual exercise of this right would exceed the minimum force necessary for the purposes of self-defense and is unconstitutional. Japan’s prohibition on the exercise of collective self-defense thus limited the potential for it to assist its US ally outside its own immediate territory during the Cold War period.

Japan’s constitutional interpretations, although not unquestioned by conservative politicians as a restriction on national sovereignty, held until the end of the Cold War and enjoyed relatively broad support from the opposition parties and the wider public. However, Japan’s failure to respond to US and international expectations that it should make a “human contribution” during the Gulf War of 1990–1991 first led Ozawa Ichirō, as the then LDP secretary-general, to enunciate the concept of “international” (kokusai-teki anzen hoshō) or “collective security” (shūdan-teki anzen hoshō).7 Ozawa’s concept of “collective security” contrasts with collective self-defense in that under

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