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Japan's New Conspiracy Law Expands Police Power
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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Ever since the Meiji Period (1868-1912), treaties and the laws of other countries have been used to justify laws the Japanese people neither want nor need. The most recent use of this technique involves a treaty called the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
Never heard of it? According to the Abe administration, implementing the treaty was important enough to justify creating hundreds of new criminal offenses, most comprising an entirely new category, namely “planning the execution of a serious crime for a terrorist or other organized crime group.”Most writers are using the word “conspiracy,” not just because it describes the new crimes more concisely, but also as this whole endeavor is widely regarded as the repackaging of past government efforts to add conspiracy to law enforcement's arsenal.
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Notes
1 The most significant changes are accomplished through the addition of a long list of offenses in Article 6-2 of the Act on Punishment of Organized Crimes and Control of Crime Proceeds (Act No. 136 of 1999). However since at the time of writing many of the amendments had not yet taken effect, the changes are not yet reflected in the version of the law on the government's “e-gov” website. At the time of writing the full text of the amendments together with a synopsis and Q&A were available at the Ministry of Justice website.
2 See here.
3 Letter from UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy Joseph Cannataci to Prime Minister of Japan dated May 18, 2017. See here.
4 See MOJ Q&A regarding amendments here.
5 See National Police Agency Police White Paper (2016 edition), chapter 6.
6 Public Service Intelligence Agency 2017-2018 (annual report, page 7).
7 See Kenzo Akiyama, “The Frightening Reality of the Public Security Intelligence Agency” Hogaku Seminar No. 619 July, 2006. pp. 124-25 (Japanese). For an English summary of the case, see Lawrence Repeta, “Japan's Bar Associations and Human Rights Protections,” (Part II) Omiya Law Review No. 4, Feb. 2008.
8 Jake Adelstein, Japan's Terrible Anti-Terror Law Just Made ‘The Minority Report’ Reality.
9 See, John Hostettler, Fighting for Justice: The History and Origins of Adversary Trial (2006).
10 See Lawrence Repeta, “The silencing of an anti-U.S. base protester in Okinawa,” Gavan McCormack and Asia-Pacific Journal, “There Will Be No Stopping the Okinawan Resistance”: an Interview with Yamashiro Hiroji
11 Judicial Statistics (Courts in Japan Website); criminal justice statistics for the year ending March 31, 2016, table 15 (reijō jiken no kekka kubun oyobi reijō no shubetsu [warrant cases by result and type of warrant]). See here.
12 Jarni Blakkarly, “Shadow of surveillance looms over Japan's Muslims,” and “Spying on Muslims in Tokyo and New York — ‘Necessary and Unavoidable‘?” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Volume 14, Issue 18, Number 2. (Sept. 15, 2016).