2016 年 52 巻 1 号 p. 203-205
We are now awfully afraid that we might expose ourselves to a crisis of war or a crisis of various sorts of international disputes. In addition, we are also fraught with many other crises that are the natural disasters frequently happening in the rest of the world, such as an earthquake, a tsunami, and a flood. In the last recent years, we have met with other human crises, such as a meltdown accident of the nuclear power plant, an information leakage, or a cyber attack. We are greatly concerned about how we should cope with these crises. In our academic association of constitutional law, there has been a movement trying to grope for a crucial constitutional law theory from the viewpoint of solving the problems at the time of the crisis since the East Japan Great Disaster occurred in 2011. In particular, their discussion has been concentrated not only on their arguments over the possibility of ruling in a state of emergency, concerning about the possibility as to whether or not emergency powers should be prescribed in the constitution under the name of "crisis correspondence," but also on their arguments concerning the human rights, such as the right to life, the freedom of expression, and other human rights that should be protected in a state of emergency. Therefore, it is strongly required to have such a practical viewpoint as coping with these crises in terms of not only human rights but also the public welfare (public interest). In other words, it must be our national demand that we should proceed to reexamine the existing theory of the fundamental human rights. We have organized this symposium for the purpose of making a new desirable interpretation of the constitution in order to confront with a forthcoming critical age of the crisis. And we should simultaneously comprehend such a keyword as the "risk management."