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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Japan is facing a constitutional crisis. The ruling coalition seeks to pass legislation that would overturn the nation's longstanding prohibition of “collective self-defense.” Expert opinion is nearly unanimous that these proposals violate Article 9, the peace provision of Japan's Constitution. As of June 12, 225 constitutional scholars had signed a public declaration condemning the bills as unconstitutional. The list includes faculty members from every respected Japanese university. But never mind. Prime Minister Abe and his friends in Washington claim to know better.
1 The text of the scholars' declaration and list of signatories is available here.
2 See Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael R. Gordon, “Japan and US set new rules for military cooperation, The New York Times, April 27, 2015.
3 The text of the guidelines are available here.
4 Remarks at a press conference, Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, June 15, 2015.
5 See here.
6 See here and here. Professor Setsu Kobayashi of Keio University scoffed, “There are hundreds of constitutional scholars in Japan. There are about two or three who would say the law is constitutional.”
Asahi Shimbun, June 5, 2015, p. 4, Japanese edition. (Translated by Lawrence Repeta)
7 Asahi Shimbun, June 11, p.2.
8 The text of the scholars' declaration and list of signatories is available here. Individual scholars can be expected to blast the government proposals at every opportunity. E.g., (more scholars say bills are unconstitutional). See here.
9 A declaration by the Japan Civil Liberties Union was released on June 12. It is available here.
10 The scholars' declarations have been followed by similar statements from bar associations and citizen groups all over the country. A statement opposing the bills was issued by the national bar association on May 14, the day the bills were approved by the Cabinet. Text (in Japanese) available here.
11 The LDP also selected Professor Hasebe to testify on behalf of the State Secrets Act in 2013. He supported the bill.
12 The most comprehensive statement of the LDP plan for an “autonomous Constitution” free of the taint of foreign influence appears in a document issued by the Party on April 28, 2012, a date selected to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the postwar occupation. See Lawrence Repeta, “Japan's Democracy at Risk – The LDP's Ten Most Dangerous Proposals for Constitutional Change,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 28, No. 3, July 15, 2013.
13 “LDP sets out constitutional amendment strategy; DPJ, Komeito preach caution,” May 08, 2015.
14 Linda Sieg, “Abe's support rate lowest since taking office in 2012,” Thomson Reuters, June 15, 2015.
15 憲法審、当面開かぬ＝自民・船田氏 June 19, 2015; 論戦安保法制 自民党国対、憲法審査会 の“凍結”要請 2015.6.16 19:09
16 Martin and Wakefield, here.
17 An English text of the Japanese Constitution is available here: add URL. And give J text URL too.
18 Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka's statement to the Diet on Sept. 23, 1973, English text from Hasebe Yasuo, “A memorandum for the Foreign Correspondents Club,” distributed on June 15, 2015.
19 TREATY OF MUTUAL COOPERATION AND SECURITY BETWEEN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Article 5, available here.
20 安保関連法案：「合憲という学者」官房長官た くさん示せず
毎日新聞 2015年06月10日 23時05分（最終更 新 06月11日 11時18分）
21 According to a 2014 US Congressional Research Service Report, positions advocated by Nippon Kaigi Kyokai include “Japan should be applauded for liberating much of East Asia from Western colonial powers, that the 1946-1948 Tokyo War Crimes tribunals were illegitimate, and that the killings by Imperial Japanese troops during the 1937 ‘Nanjing massacre’ were exaggerated or fabricated.” CRS, “Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress,” Feb. 20, 2014, available here. Quoted in Norihiro Kato, “Tea Party Politics in Japan – Japan's Rising Nationalism,” The New York Times, Sept. 12, 2014. According to the Economist, Nippon Kaigi members “applaud Japan's wartime ‘liberation’ of East Asia from Western colonialism; rebuild the armed forces; inculcate patriotism among students brainwashed by left-wing teachers; and revere the emperor as he was worshipped in the good old days before the war,” “Right side up,” The Economist, June 6, 2015, and here.
22 See here.
23 Summary of Opinion (kenkai) of Japan Government, June 9, 2015, Asahi Shimbun, June 10, 2015, p.7.
24 Constitution, Article 98.
25 Procedures for revision are set forth in Constitution Article 96.
26 Asahi Shimbun, June 11, 2015, p.2.
27 See, e.g., “Supreme Court chief justice tipped off U.S. diplomats in 1959,” The Asahi Shimbun, April 09, 2013. For additional analysis, see Craig Martin, “U.S. Interference in Japanese Constitutional Case,”
After these disclosures, several of the Sunakawa defendants filed a request for retrial on the ground that U.S. interference had denied them the right to a fair trial. See “Chance for court to right a wrong,” Japan Times, June 23, 2014
28 Thus, the Court waived authority to pass on the constitutionality of this particular Treaty but warned that it would exercise such authority in cases it considered “obviously unconstitutional and void.” All quotations are from Theodore McNelly (ed.) Sources in Modern East Asian History and Politics (Meredith Corp., 1967), pp. 198-99.
29 Sakata v. Japan, 13 Keishu 3225, Supreme Court Judgment of Dec. 16, 1959, McNelly, ibid.,, p. 196.
30 On June 13, surviving lawyers who defended the Sunakawa defendants six decades ago held a press conference of their own in which they repeated the message that the Sunakawa court did not address collective self-defense. 砂川事 件弁護団 再び声明 合憲主張「国民惑わす強 弁」 June 13, 2015.
31 Richard Armitage, Remarks at Tokyo Press Roundtable, June 9, 2003. Cited in Michael Penn, Japan and the War on Terror - Military Force and Political Pressure in the U.S.-Japan Alliance, (I.B. Tauris, 2014). Penn's book is a masterful account of the pressure applied by American “alliance managers” demanding that Japan join the war in Iraq, the servile attitude of Japanese officials and the eagerness of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and other nationalist politicians to join the war.
32 In the June 15 press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club, Professor Kobayashi notified the audience that lawyers were preparing suits to be filed on the day the national security legislation is passed. Due to stringent standing requirements created by Japan's Supreme Court, nearly any such suit will be dismissed. See Martin
33 Quoted in Penn, at p. 270.
34 See Penn, pp. 269-74 for a discussion of the Nagoya High Court decision.
35 Gavan McCormack, Client State - Japan in the American Embrace (Verso 2007).
36 Ibid., p. 191.
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