Japan Press Weekly

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2013 November 6 - 12 [POLITICS]

Japan can use right to collective self-defense in case of ‘serious impact’: gov’t panel chief

Kitaoka Shinichi, acting chair of a government panel on security, said that in case of a serious impact on Japan, it should be allowed to exercise the right to collective self-defense on November 6 at a lecture given in Tokyo.

The Japanese government has recognized that it is unconstitutional to exercise the right to collective self-defense because it goes beyond the bare minimum measure for the defense of the country.

Kitaoka, who is also a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, in the lecture urged that it is irrelevant to recognize uses of the right to collective self-defense as beyond the constitutional limit without exception.

He said that if an unjust attack against Japan’s close ally could lead to a serious impact on Japan’s security, the nation should be allowed to use its force of arms to help the ally to respond to the aggression.

These remarks clearly show that Kitaoka aims to define conditions where the Japanese Self-Defense Forces can go abroad to fight.

The advisory panel on security, which is hosted by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, is considering revising the conventional constitutional interpretation to enable the country to exercise the right to collective self-defense. Kitaoka plans to compile a report on the panel’s discussion at the beginning of next year.

Past related article
> Abe Cabinet aims to approve right to collective self-defense [August 9, 2013]