Panel proposes allowing Japan to exercise right of collective self-defense

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Panel proposes allowing Japan to exercise right of collective self-defense

A prime minister’s advisory panel tasked to re-examine the government interpretation of the Constitution proposes that the government revise its official view that Japan cannot exercise the right of collective self-defense under the present Constitution.

The Conference on Reconstituting Legal Foundations for National Security, chaired by a former Japanese ambassador to the United States, stated this in a report it submitted to Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo on June 24.

It is the first prime minister’s advisory panel to call for the government interpretation of the Constitution to be changed.

The current government’s interpretation is that Japan is not allowed to exercise the right of collective self-defense under Article 9 of the Constitution.

The panel’s report, however, insists that it is possible for Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense because the Constitution (Article 9) does not explicitly prohibit it and because Japan’s security environment has changed.

The panel was established during former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s term of office.

In its first meeting held in May last year, Abe ordered the panel to study whether the Self-Defense Forces can exercise the right of collective self-defense in the following four cases: (1) responding to an attack against a U.S. military ship navigating the high seas along with a Japanese Self-Defense Force ship; (2) intercepting a ballistic missile attack targeting the U.S.; (3) participating in military action to repel attacks on foreign forces on overseas missions that involve the Japanese SDF; and (4) extending logistic support to U.S. forces or multinational forces.

The report concludes that the SDF should be allowed to use the right of collective self-defense in all those cases because it is “essential to maintain and strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance.”

It also encourages the ruling bloc’s move to establish a permanent law to send the SDF abroad in order to expand scenarios in which the SDF is allowed to use weapons. - Akahata, June 25, 2008