Tag - article 9

 
 

ARTICLE 9

COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2014
Wrong path to full sovereignty
The change in the government's long-standing interpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution may lift some restrictions on Japan's use of military force, but Japan will not become a full-fledged sovereign state as long as it has a leader who can neither think autonomously nor press a case on behalf of Japan with a negotiating partner.
JAPAN / ASHIDA'S WAR DIARY
Aug 17, 2014
The realist behind the idealist Constitution
A mystery surrounding late Prime Minister Hitoshi Ashida was his postwar call for Japan to re-militarize despite constitutional limits imposed by war-renouncing Article 9.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ASHIDA'S WAR DIARY
Aug 14, 2014
Diary spurs rethink of prewar anti-militarist, postwar prime minister
The anti-military stance of the editor of The Japan Times got him blacklisted during the war but helped him become prime minister three years after it ended.
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2014
Japanese lawmakers say war-renouncing Constitution deserves Nobel Peace Prize
A group of lawmakers callfor the Nobel Committee to award Article 9 of the Constitution this year's Nobel Peace Prize, saying it would greatly encourage Japanese people as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushes to expand the nation's military capacity.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices
Jul 14, 2014
Osaka: Do you approve of the recent reinterpretation of constitutional limits on military action?
On July 2, the Cabinet approved a new interpretation of the Constitution that effectively broadens the range of situations in which the Self-Defense Forces are permitted to act militarily. Danny Gong asked interviewees in Osaka what they thought about this change.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 12, 2014
Abe's constitutional putsch and U.S. security cooperation
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's putsch involves bypassing constitutional procedures to revise the Constitution because he lacks sufficient support to win two-thirds approval in both houses of the Diet and a majority in a national referendum. Instead, Abe achieved by diktat what he could not gain democratically,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Jul 9, 2014
Under Abe, Japan reconnects with the world of harm
It would be tragic if the process Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set in motion destroys one of the truly great things about Japan: the fact that so little of its economy and society is devoted to harming other people.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 5, 2014
Fiery Shinjuku protest goes global without NHK
Until the Great East Japan Earthquake, social media didn't have much purchase on Japanese social life. But disasters are transformative, and in a country where the mass media is cautious about its role vis-a-vis the authorities, social media came into its own after the tsunami and meltdown.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 5, 2014
Shinjuku self-immolation act protests Abe's democracy hijack
Last week a man set himself on fire next to Shinjuku Station to reportedly protest Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bid to lift constitutional constraints on Japan's military forces. It was a gruesome spectacle captured on numerous smartphone videos and disseminated on social media. Good thing because the...
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2014
Textbook publishers mull revisions on description of collective self-defense
Publishers of civics textbooks for junior high and high schools are considering modifying their descriptions of collective self-defense, given the government's move this week to allow the country to exercise the controversial right, NHK reported Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 2, 2014
Abe guts Article 9
With its Cabinet decision to allow Japan to exercise collective self-defense, the Abe administration has effectively gutted Article 9.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jul 1, 2014
Critics: What defines the conditions for military force?
Japan is at a historic crossroads in amending its long-held pacifist defense posture, a move that it may never reverse, and critics charge that the Abe administration's criteria for exercising the right to collective self-defense will prove ineffective.
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2014
Most Japanese voters oppose security shift
Half of Japanese voters oppose dropping a ban that has kept the military from fighting abroad since World War II, a survey showed on Monday, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe readied a landmark shift in security policy that would ease the constraints of the pacifist constitution on the armed forces. A third...
EDITORIALS
Jun 29, 2014
Rushing on collective self-defense
The Abe administration may adopt a Cabinet decision as early as this week to change the government's long-standing interpretation of the Constitution so that Japan can participate in 'collective self-defense.' Opinions from the public do not seem welcome.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 27, 2014
'Reinterpreting' Article 9 endangers Japan's rule of law
The most serious problem with the recommendations of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's advisory panel on reinterpreting Article 9 of the Consititution is that they reflect a result-oriented analysis driven by national security imperatives rather than constitutional law principles.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 24, 2014
Abe offers concession on collective defense
The Abe administration gave some ground Tuesday to New Komeito in the ninth round of the coalition defense talks, offering tougher conditions before Japan would be allowed to exercise the long-prohibited right to collective self-defense.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 23, 2014
War history lessons ignored
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is ignoring history as he tries to have the Constitution reintrepreted to enable Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.
EDITORIALS
Jun 23, 2014
Chance for court to right a wrong
Surviving defendants convicted of trespassing on a U.S. air base in western Tokyo 57 years ago seek a retrial of their case because of their fear that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is using language in the original judgment to support his attempt to have the Constitution reinterpreted in a way enabling Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 21, 2014
Abe hijacks democracy, undermines Constitution
By short-circuiting the democratic process, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is abusing the trust put in him by the people. His initiative to reinterpret Article 9 of the Constitution to lift constraints on the Japanese military and permit collective self-defense is the most recent example of how Abe is trampling...
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2014
New Komeito shouldn't cave in
New Komeito's most important party ideal — pacifism — is being tested by the Abe administration's efforts to allow Japan to engage in collective self-defense.

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