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| Image: Flickr User - Official U.S. Navy Page |
By Paul Kallender-Umezu
TOKYO — Efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to normalize Japan's security posture and bolster its US alliance against China hit an obstacle when the Lower House Commission on the Constitution declared Abe's moves unconstitutional. Still, Japan is expected to pass legislation around August to expand the nation's ability to better support the US in the defense of Japan.
In a minor bombshell, on June 4, Setsu Kobayashi, professor emeritus of Constitutional Law at Keio University and member of the Lower House Commission on the Constitution, said provisions allowing limited rights of collective self defense as promoted by the Abe administration are unconstitutional.
"Paragraph 2 of Article 9 does not grant any legal standing for military activities abroad," Kobayashi is reported to have said. "Going to war abroad to help a friendly nation is a violation of Article 9," he said.
Article 9 of the 1947 US-imposed Japanese Constitution outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes involving the state. In its text, the state formally renounces the sovereign right of belligerency and aims for international peace based on justice and order.
In its own interpretation, the legislation put forward by the Abe administration this spring mostly deals with provisions about how Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) can legally support the US in certain situations.
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