Japan needs a permanent law that lays out the basic rules for dispatching the Self-Defense Forces overseas, instead of enacting short-term special laws for each mission, newly appointed Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in a recent interview.
"We should set basic principles and rules to decide under what conditions we will send (SDF units) overseas," said Ishiba, a noted expert on defense issues. "Enacting a special law each time is problematic."
Due to strict legal restrictions under the war-renouncing Constitution, the Diet has enacted a number of special ruling coalition-sponsored laws to dispatch SDF units overseas.