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Whose Peace? Anti-Military Litigation and the Right to Live in Peace in Postwar Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Tomoyuki Sasaki
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This article examines two anti-military court cases that took place in Hokkaido during the 1960s and 1970s and their legacy today. It demonstrates how protesters against Japan's Self-Defense Forces developed the notion of the right to live in peace through a creative interpretation of the Constitution.

Keywords

Self-Defense Forcesmilitarythe ConstitutionArticle 9peacethe right to live in peaceHokkaido
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 29 , July 2012 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2012

References

Notes

1 The Ministry of Defense.

2 The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

3 On the making of the new constitution, see Shoichi Koseki, The Birth of Japan's Postwar Constitution (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997); Ray Moore and Donald Robinson, Partners for Democracy: Crafting the New Japanese State under MacArthur (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999), Ch. 12 and 13.

4 Glenn Hook, Militarisation and Demilitarisation in Contemporary Japan (London: Routledge, 1995); Glenn Hook and Gavan McCormack, Japan's Contested Constitution; Documents and Analysis (London: Routledge, 2001); Kenneth Port, Transcending Law: The Unintended Life of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2010).

5 Arai Shigenori, ed., Jieitai nenkan 1962 (Tokyo: Bōei Sangyō Kyōkai, 1962), 314-318. On the militarization of Hokkaido in general, see Matsui Satoru, “Gunji kichi Hokkaido” in Hokkaido de heiwa o kangaeru, ed. Fukase Tadakazu (Sapporo: Hokkaido Daigaku Tosho Kankōkai, 1988).

6 See Asahikawashi Henshü Iinkai, Asahikawashi-shi 2 (Asahikawa Shiyakusho, 1957), −863-869; Chitoseshi-shi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Chitoseshi-shi (Chitoseshi, 1983), 1249-1250. Other communities that developed close ties with the SDF include Bihoro, Nayoro, and Kami-Furano, to name a few.

7 Philip Seaton, “Vietnam and Iraq in Japan: Japanese and American Grassroots Peace Activism”; Kageyama Asako and Philip Seaton, “Marines Go Home: Anti-Base Activism in Okinawa, Japan, and Korea”; Tanaka Nobumasa, “Defending the Peace Constitution in the Midst of the SDF Training Area.”

8 Lawrence W. Beer and Hiroshi Itoh, eds., The Constitutional Case Law of Japan, 1970 through 1990 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996), 83-130; Toshihiro Yamauchi,

“Constitutional Pacifism: Principle, Reality, and Perspective,” in Five Decades of Constitutionalism in Japanese Society, ed. Yoichi Higuchi (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2001); Port, Transcending Law, 129-130.

9 Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, ed., Eniwa jiken: Jieitaiho ihan: kohan kiroku 1, 2 (Sapporo: Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, 1964), 1-3.

10 Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai and Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, eds., Eniwa wa kokuhatsu suru (Kyoto: Chōbunsha, 1967), 54-55.

11 Ibid., 90-91.

12 Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, ed., Eniwa jiken 1, 2, p. 4. Although the English version of the Japanese constitution uses the term “war potential” to refer to senryoku, throughout this paper I use “war capability” to illuminate more clearly the military power the state possesses, and to contrast it to “defense capability” or boeiryoku.

13 Ibid., 47.

14 John O. Haley, “Waging War: Japan's Constitutional Constraints,” in Constitutional Forum, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2005, 28.

15 Ibid., 24-25; Port, Transcending Law, 95-100.

16 David Rodin, War and Self-Defense (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 103-110; Yoram Dinstein, War, Aggression, and Self-Defense (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 83-91.

17 Watanabe Minoru, ed., Eniwashi-shi (Eniwa: Hokkaido Eniwa Shiyakusho, 1979), 515-516.

18 The following accounts of the Nozaki brothers’ experience is based on their statements and that of one of their lawyers at the fourth hearing on March 16, 1964. Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, ed., Eniwa jiken 1, 2, 49-61.

19 Ibid., 57.

20 At the fifth hearing on March 18, 1964. Ibid., 105-107.

21 Deborah J. Milly, Poverty, Equality, and Growth: The Politics of Economic Need in Postwar Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1999), Ch. 7.

22 Thomas Havens, Fire Across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan 1965-1975 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

23 Vera Mackie, Feminism in Modern Japan: Citizenship, Embodiment, and Sexuality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Ch. 7.

24 Timothy George, Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), Ch. 6 and 7.

25 Wesley Sasaki-Uemura, Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001).

26 Simon Andrew Avenell, Making Japanese Citizens: Civil Society and the Mythology of the Shimin in Postwar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).

27 Immanuel Wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), Ch. 5.

28 Hoshino Yasusaburō, “Heiwateki seizonken joron,” in Nihonkoku kenposhi-ko: sengo no kenpo seiji, ed. Kobayashi Takasuke and Hoshino Yasusaburō. (Kyoto: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 1962), 3-25.

29 Watanabe Yōzō and Matsui Yasuhiro, eds., Eniwa Jiken (Tokyo: Rōdō Junpōsha, 1967), 49-50.

30 Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, ed., Eniwa jiken kohan kiroku 10 (Sapporo: Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, 1967), 51-71. This final plea was also published in Fukase Tadakazu, Eniwa saiban ni okeru heiwa kenpo no bensho (Tokyo: Nippon Hyōronsha, 1967).

31 Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, ed., Eniwa jiken kōhan kiroku 11 (Sapporo: Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai, 1967), 1-4.

32 Eniwa Jiken Taisaku Iinkai and Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, eds., Eniwa wa kokuhatsu suru, 217.

33 Fukase, Eniwa saiban ni okeru heiwa kenpō no benshō, 252.

34 On Japanese firms’ efforts to domesticate armament production, see Richard Samuels, “Rich Nation, Strong Army”: The National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).

35 The Japanese government has been launching defense buildup plans about every five years since 1958. In each plan, the government announces plans for the defense budget, fundamental defense policies, and the types of weapons to be developed over the next five years. On the Third Defense Buildup Plan, in addition to Samuels's book, see Asagumo Shinbun Henshūkyoku, ed., Bōei hando bukku: Shōwa 50 nen-ban (Asagumo Shinbunsha, 1975), 13-20.

36 Naganuma is located in wet, low land. The community had been affected by a number of floods. See Naganumacho-shi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Naganumachō no rekishi, gekan (Hokkaido Naganumachō, 1962).

37 Hayashi Takeshi, Naganuma Saiban: Jieitai iken ronso no kiroku (Tokyo: Gakuyō Shobō, 1974), 15-16.

38 Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 1 (Sapporo: Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, 1970), 10-26.

39 Hoanrin kaijo shobun shikkō teishi mōshitate jiken,” attached to Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 1, 1-17.

40 Ibid., 53-58.

41 “Shikkō teishi kettei ni taisuru sokuji kikkō mōshitate jiken,” attached to Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 1, 1-50.

42 Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 1, 26-37.

43 Ibid., 45-52.

44 Ibid., 75-77.

45 Summary of the testimonies of Genda Minoru (former Chief of Staff of the Air SDF) on October 9, 1970 and January 29, 1971, Ogata Kagetoshi (Chief of Staff of the Air SDF) on May 14, 1971, Uchida Kazutomi (Chief of Staff of the Maritime SDF) on September 30, 1971, and Nakamura Ryūhei (Chief of Staff of the Ground SDF) on November 25, 1971. Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 2 (Sapporo: Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, 1972), 23-67, 129-185, 253-321, and 375-421; Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 3 (Sapporo: Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, 1972), 481-541.

46 Testimonies of Hayashi on November 26, 1971, and Osanai on March 31, 1972. Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 3, 579-581, 732-735, and 741-742.

47 Testimony of Osanai on March 31, 1972. Ibid., 720-724. Today, we know that Osanai's fear was by no means irrational. Before its reversion to Japan, Okinawa was armed with nuclear weapons. Although nuclear weapons were removed from Okinawa when Japan regained sovereignty, it was recently revealed that President Nixon and Prime Minister Satō had made a secret agreement in 1969 that, even after its reversion, the United States could bring nuclear weapons to the prefecture in an emergency situation. See Yomiuri shinbun, evening edition, December 22, 2009. Moreover, George Packard has recently indicated that despite the Japanese government's public insistence on the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, under a secret agreement, it allowed US ships and planes carrying nuclear weapons to stop at Japan. See Packard, “The United States-Japan Security Treaty at 50,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2010.

48 The joint statement is available on the homepage of the US Embassy in Japan. On the US-Japan relations during this era, see Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), Ch. 12.

49 Testimonies of Yamada on July 16, 1971, and Takahasi on March 12, 1971. Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 2, 342-343, 364-367, and 224-225.

50 Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 5 (Sapporo: Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, 1973), 1315-1318.

51 Ibid., 1318-1320.

52 Ibid., 1351-1352.

53 The verdict of the Sapporo High Court is available on the database of judicial precedents on the court's website. For the record of the trial, see Naganuma Jiken Bengodan, ed., Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 6 (Sapporo: Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, 1975), and Naganuma misairu kichi jiken soshō kiroku 7 (Sapporo: Hokkaido Heiwa Iinkai, 1976).

54 Beer and Itoh, The Constitutional Case Law of Japan, 49-54.

55 Ibid. Port, Transcending Law, 129-131; Hidenori Tomatsu, “Judicial Review in Japan: An Overview of Efforts to Introduce U.S. Theories,” in Five Decades of Constitutionalism in Japanese Society, ed. Higuchi (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 2001). Although the Democratic Party took power in 2009, attitudes toward non-justiciable, political questions had been consolidated during the LDP era. Therefore it seems unlikely that the courts, particularly the Supreme Court, will drastically change their reluctance to judge the constitutionality of governmental acts anytime soon.

56 The verdict of the Supreme Court is available on the database of judicial precedents on the court's website.

57 Tsurumi Shunsuke, “Nemoto kara no minshu shugi” in Nichijō no shisō: sengo Nihon shisō taikei 14, ed. Takabatake Michitoshi (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1970), 284-295. Tsurumi first published this article in Shiso no kagaku, July 1960.

58 Watanabe Yōzō. Seiji to ho no aida: Nihon- koku kenpō no jūgonen (Tokyo: Tyoko Daigaku Shuppankai, 1963), 7-11.

59 Fukase Tadakazu, Sensō hōki to heiwateki seizonken (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987); Hoshino Yasusaburō, “Heiwateki seizonken kara kyōzonken e,” in Kenpō no kagakuteki kōsatsu, ed. Hoshino et al (Kyoto: Hōritsu Bunkasha, 1985); Yamauchi Toshihiro, Heiwa kenpō no riron (Tokyo: Nippon Hyōronsha, 1992).

60 The verdict and the explanation of its significance by a lawyer for the plaintiffs are available in Kawaguchi Hajime and Otsuka Eiji, “Jieitai no Iraku hahei sashidome soshō” hanketsubun o yomu (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2009).