Disarmament and Civilian Control in Japan: A Constitutional Dilemma

Asahi Nenkan, 1981, Supplement, p. 303.

'Basic Initial Post-Surrender Directive to Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers for the Occupation and Control of Japan', transmitted to MacArthur by Joint Chiefs of Staff, November 3, 1945, in Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Political Reorientation of Japan ( Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office , n.d.), II, 428-439.

Text of SWNCC-228 in Theodore McNelly, ed., Sources in Modern East Asian History and Politics (New York : Irvington, 1967), pp. 177-186.

Tatsuji Takeuchi , War and Diplomacy in the Japanese Empire (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1935), pp. 14-16, 28-30.

Also Kenneth Colegrove , 'Militarism in Japan's Foreign Policy', The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 215 (May 1941), p. 7-16.

For recently discovered evidence on the genesis of the disarmament clause, see Theodore McNelly , 'The Origins of Article 9' , Noritsu Jiho, Vol. 51, No. 6(May, 1979), pp. 256-260, in English, pp. 178-181 in Japanese. Also Yomiuri Shinbun, April 29, 1980, pp. 1, 15, and my 'General MacArthur and the Constitutional Disarmament of Japan', to be published in 1982 in Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.

In Political Reorientation , II, 661.

GHQ, SCAP, Government Section Memorandum for the Record, 10 July 1946, Subject: FEC Basic Principles for the New Japanese Constitution (W-93298). (I am indebted to Dr. Cyrus Peake for supplying me a copy of this document).

Verbatim record of the 27th meeting of the Far Eastern Commission , 21 September 1946, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Miyazawa Toshiyoshi , Nihonkoku kenp (Tokyo : Nihon Hyoronsha, 1955 ), supplementary volume, pp. 328-332.

Ohira Zengo , 'Shibirian kontororu tokushugo ni daishite , 'Boeihō kenkyo, Vol. 3 (May, 1979), pp. 1-2.

Sato Tatsuo , Nihonkoku kenpō tanjoki (Tokyo: Okurasho Insatsukyoku 1957), pp. 194-201.

Sato, p. 137.

For the contrasting views of Professors Kobaysahi and Ito Masami, see Tanaka Hideo , The Japanese Legal System: Introductory Cases and Materials (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1976), pp. 698-707.

For a discussion of this point see Sato Seizaburo , 'Meaningless Insistence on the Right of Belligerency', Japan Echo , Vol. VIII, No. 2 (Summer 1981), pp. 94-103.

John M. Maki , transl. and ed., Japan's Commission on the Constitution: The Final Report (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980), pp. 260-272.

Tanaka, p. 702.

John M. Maki, ed., Court and Constitution in Japan: Selected Supreme Court Decisions, 1948-60 (Seattle : University of Washington Press, 1964), p. 306.

The complete Japanese text of the Naganuma Nike base decision of 1973 is printed in Jurisuto, No. 549 (December 1, 1973), pp. 83-151. A very brief summary in English is contained in Law in Japan: An Annual, Vol. 6 (1973), pp. 175-176.

The text of the Ogo decision in Japanese is published in Hanrei jiho. No. 821 (September 21, 1976), pp. 21-24.

For a review of the issues at stake, see Wada Hideo , 'Naganuma kososhin hanketsu o meguru shiten to mondaiten', Hanrei jiho , No. 821 (September 21, 1976), pp. 3-8.

Hasegawa Masayasu , 'Dai kyujo o meguru kanpogaku no hensen', Hogaku semina, Vol. 24, No. 8 (August, 1980), pp. 34-39.

Hashimoto's theory suggests the 'experiential approach', which has become more or less accepted in American constitutional interpretation. See C. Herman Prichett , The American Constitution, Second edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), pp. 49-50.

Herbert F. Bolz , 'Judicial Review in Japan: The Strategy of Restraint', Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Fall, 1980), pp. 87-142, esp. pp. 104 and 112.

Concerning political questions in Japan before 1967, see Yokota Kisaburo , 'Political Questions and Judicial Review: A Comparison', Dan Fenno Henderson, ed., The Constitution of Japan: Its First Twenty Years, 1947-67 (Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1968), pp. 141-166.

On more recent developments, see Tokikuni Yasuo , 'Procedures for Constitutional Litigation and Judgements of Constitutionality', Law in Japan: An Annual, Vol. ( 1980), pp. 1-19.

John M. Maki , 'The Japanese Constitutional Style', in Henderson, op. cit., pp. 3-29.

Hasegawa Masayasu , 'Seron no bunretsu to kenpo no kiki', Hogaku Semina, Vol. 25, No. 8 (August, 1981), pp. 2-6.

A leading advocate of this line of thought, prevailing among Japan's progressive intellectuals, is Kobayashi Naoki. See for example his 'Gendai Nihon boei no kihon zentei', in Hogaku semina , Vol. 7 (October, 1978 ), pp. 16-25.

For example, see Theodore McNelly , '"Peace Constitutions" Can't Bring End to World's Wars', in Japan Times (Tokyo), June 8, 1980, p. 12,

and the same author's 'Constitutional Disarmament and the Global Abolition of War: The Meaning of the Japanese Experience', in Howard Federspiel, ed., Southeast Conference Association for Asian Studies Annals . Vol. III (20th Annual Meeting, January 22-24, 1981, Lexington, Virginia), obtainable from the editor, Ohio State University, Newark, Ohio.

'I realized with admiration how firmly established was civilian control of the armed forces in the American system of government. I could not help contrasting this with the Japanese government before and during the war' Takeyama Michio, critic, cited in Asahi Shinbun, The Pacific Rivals: A Japanese View of Japanese-American Relations (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill/Asahi, 1972), p. 202.

After the outbreak of the Korean war, however, MacArthur insisted that the 'abolition of war' could not mean 'the abandonment of all armed forces but it would reduce them to the simpler problems of internal order and international police' (General MacArthur's addresses on June 11, 1961, at Michigan State University and July 5, 1961 to the Congress of the Philippines, printed in Representative Speeches of General of the Army Doublas MacArthur (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), pp. 90-95, 97-100).

Samuel P. Huntington , The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (New York: Vintage Books , 1964), p. 372.

Boeicho, ed., Boei hakusho (Tokyo: Okurasho Insatsukyoku, August 1980), p. 33.

Nishi Osamu , 'Shibirian kontororu: Amerika no hikaku o tsujite', Horei kaisetsu shiryo soran, No. 14 pp. 99-115.

Japan Echo, Vol. V., No. 4 (Winter 1978), p. 6. The chairman of the Joint Staff Council in Japan corresponds to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States.

Huntington, p. 81.

Comments by Ian Gow, speaking at the University of Maryland, April 22, 1982.

On the implications of such an amendment, see Sato Isao , 'Debate on Constitutional Amendment : Origins and Status', Law in Japan: An Annual , Vo. 12 (1979), pp. 1-22.

For a bibliography of the Morishima-Seki debate, see Asahi Nenkan , 1980, p. 561. An analysis of this debate is carried in Japan Echo , Vol. VII, No. 1 (Spring, 1980), pp. 63-68.

The Defense of Japan, 1980 [The Defense White Paper] (Tokyo: Japan Times , n.d.), p. 87.

Huntington, p. 139.

James H. Buck, 'Civilian Control of the Military in Japan', in Claude E. Welch, Jr. ed., Civilian Control of the Military: Theory and Cases from Developing Countries (Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press, 1976), pp. 149-185.