Modern science was derived from the physics of the 17th century. Such a modern science regarded nature as existing independently from the human subjectivity, and assuming such nature and human relations, was going to grasp nature of the object by a system of objective knowledge. It opened the way for an operational rule for nature. Modern technology was based on natural recognition of modern science.

However, contemporary science, which is based on natural recognition that was different from the modern science, emerged in the early 20th century. Quantum mechanics for classical mechanics, another phenomenon of this time, revolutionized natural recognition. Contemporary technology, which accomplished remarkable growth in the late 20th century, is regarded as the result of such a contemporary science in large quantities.

Alongside the establishment of quantum mechanics, Nishida’s philosophy, which is built around the framework of world recognition and logical structure, was born. The future predicted by the logic of Nishida’s philosophy, is a figure of the global community coming up beyond the transformation of technology. By the transformation of technology that advanced in the late 20th century, the world recognition of Nishida’s philosophy will win a base of existing in the historic world.

The development of nuclear weapons signaled the establishment of contemporary technology. However, the transformation of technology that went ahead through the results of contemporary science as a driving force, made it possible to succeed to the world structure created by nuclear weapon without nuclear weapon. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is an international milestone, as it aspires to establish a world without nuclear weapons. As such, this rhetoric for international peace based on justice and order should be adopted by all states.

This paper analyzes the principles of law regarding nuclear policies of Japan as they relate to constitutional theory, the Japanese government, and judicial precedent.

The analysis addresses three issues that have recently arisen in relation to the Constitution of Japan. The first concerns a principle of law found in the discussion between Shinkun HAKU, a member of the House of Councilors, and Yusuke YOKOBATAKE, Director-General of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, which took place at the Budget Committee of the House of Councilors on March 18, 2016. The point of their discussion was whether it was constitutional for Japan to use nuclear weapons abroad when Japan was not under direct military attack.

The second issue concerns nuclear plants under Clause 2, Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, which prohibits the maintenance of land, sea, and air forces, as well as other potential instruments of war. However, it may be violated if nuclear power plants are regarded as war potential. This reasoning derives from the fact that nuclear power plants can have capacity to produce, maintain, and use nuclear weapons.

The third issue concerns constitutional rights and nuclear power plants. Some experts posit that nuclear power plants violate various constitutional rights, such as the right to life, the right of personhood, the environmental right, the rights of future generations, the right to live in peace, the right of equality, and the right to self-government of local residents. In this regard, the analysis also considers some recent judicial precedents on constitutional rights and nuclear power plants, such as one from the Fukui District Court on May 21, 2014.

This paper explores the relation between Article 24 and the Pacifism of the 1946 Constitution of Japan. Article 24 is the provision for family-based rights but does not include a clause for the protection of the family. Activists who criticize the Pacifism of the Constitution have sought an amendment to not only Article 9 but also Article 24. Because they insist that the lack of a clause for a family’s protection causes the crisis of the family’s dissolution as well as Article 9 leads to the crisis of the state’s dissolution.

Besides, the insistence of a family’s protection has been supported not only in Japan but also in the United Nations since 1995. In the United States, protection of the family is commonly known as the family values movement by Christian Right, which emerged in the 1970s. The demand on family protection by the religious right has formed political powers both in Japan and in the United Nations.

This paper compares the issue of family protection in the United Nations with Japan. As a result, it concludes that the protection of the family in both cases means to protect “our” family and to exclude the “enemy’s” family. This line of reasoning is echoed by militarism thought, requires the nation, or “us,” to fight against an enemy nation, or “them.” The Pacifism of the Constitution of Japan declares that all the people of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want. That is to say, the Pacifism of the Constitution denies the friend-foe way of thinking. Hence, Article 24 excludes the clause of the protection of the family and supports the Pacifism of the Constitution with Article 9.

In recent years, campaigns by constitutional revisionists and supporters of the current constitution have been active as the current regime shows great ambition to change the constitution of Japan. After the Asia–Pacific War ended, Japan adopted a democracy-oriented constitution based on universal respect for fundamental human rights, principles of popular sovereignty, and pacifism.

These three principles of the constitution can be distilled to maximum respect for individual dignity. The fundamental element of human rights is the right to live with dignity. Popular sovereignty means that individuals with dignity can form a society through deliberation. Lastly, pacifism refers to the restriction of the use of armed force, such as war, which strips humans of their dignity and mobilizes them as objects of military power.

Despite these values being enshrined in the legal framework, the Japanese society has failed to implement them in practice. Racism, for instance, is completely incompatible with the idea of respecting individual dignity as it establishes each party’s superiority or inferiority based on group identity. Japanese society, in many ways, can be perceived as being “tolerant” of racism. For example, political figures have been accused of committing various racist acts and have not resigned from their respective offices.

Some find it surprising that a politician would not resign in this case but would resign if involved in any other illicit affair. This means that Japanese society, in general, considers racial discrimination as a less serious matter than a personal illicit affair.

Why is it that we disregard these common acts of racism despite having created a legal framework that places maximum importance on individual dignity? One crucial reason is that the idea of the Japanese nation is based on imagined blood relation. To eliminate racism, Japan must transform the idea of the nation from an imagined blood relation to a sense of nationalism that shares the maximum respect for individual dignity, which is the fundamental philosophy of the constitution.

“Territorial” thought divides the world into “us” versus “them,” often leading people to retreat from complex society and withdraw into closed territory that is protected from uncertainty. This phenomenon is found not only in rising antiimmigrant sentiment but also in our knowledge that tends to employ solid models to the unstable world by eliminating the unknown. The Fukushima nuclear disaster, for example, revealed the limitation of such knowledge. A scientific approach cannot provide full certainty regarding operating nuclear plants or investigating the health risks of radiation. The moral law is also inapplicable when a complexity of society distracts us from feeling responsible to others. This urges the need for another type of thought which reflects uncertainty.

While the “territorial” nature of conventional science and moral philosophy discounts the complexity and vulnerability of life, this paper introduces a strand of contemporary philosophy called post-humanism and new materialism. It is radically “non-territorial” thought that deconstructs the notion of a rational subject with a clear identity and intention. Although such entities are often regarded as disempowered, the paper claims that they possess ethico-political agency. The case in point is political practices in the post-Fukushima anti-nuclear movement. In this instance, the protesters took to the street based on emotional turmoil, such as shock, anger, and regret. Those emotional experiences were initially personal, but the activism provided a space for each participant to feel the pain of others, share a passion and create something new together. Through encountering others on the street, they formed a heterogeneous “assemblage” and engage in politics without consistent ideology.

The paper questions a dishonest habit of scholars who stand outside of the phenomenon they observe and reduce changing reality to an invariable model, thereby downplaying the precarity of our lives. As peace studies researchers, we need to put ourselves in the middle of uncertainty, experiment with affirming the dignity of proximate bodies, and weave knowledge together from within.

The democratization and decentralization that has spread among many developing countries, for instance, the Philippines, has led to the problem of “Local Bossism.” The term refers to elite domination of the local political economy based on a monopoly of political power that gives the local economic elite the authority to allocate national resources in the locality. Local elites tend to win election through patron-client relationships which involve election strategies such as vote-buying and coercion. They also attempt to accumulate wealth by abusing power delegated to local chief executives through decentralization. This includes unfair preferential treatment of their family members, cronies, and clients, without maintaining the welfare of local poor and “ordinary” residents. Monopoly of political power and dominance of development shares by local elites prevents fair, just socioeconomic development that contributes to improvement of poor, ordinary residents’ lives. However, local democratic political power that explains policies and philosophy to voters and obtains consent from them started to emerge in the Philippines with the rise of civil society forces that do improve lives of poor or ordinary residents. This local democratic political power established bonds of trust with local residents and implemented sound development through good governance that contributes to improving poor and ordinary residents’ lives. This case demonstrates the possibility of avoiding maldevelopment through political reform encouraged by deepening democracy and development of civil society, even in other developing countries with similar problems post democratization and decentralization.

This paper discusses how national courts interpret and apply constitutional norms governing policies of transitional justice through a comparative study on the systems of evaluations on the constitutional legitimacy of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) Laws provided by the highest courts in South Africa and Nepal. Both countries’ TRC Laws authorized TRCs to grant amnesty. However, although the Constitutional Court of South Africa admitted constitutionality of the TRC Law in 1996, the Supreme Court of Nepal denied it in 2014 and again in 2015.

Through reviewing previous research on “transitional constitutionalism,” this paper argues that the basis of constitutional legitimacy can be found in both national and international norms during the period of transition. Regarding national norms, the Constitutional Court of South Africa legitimized the TRC Law, as it pursued constitutional values rendered by the Interim Constitution because a social context entailed participation of victims for promoting reconciliation. However, the Supreme Court of Nepal denied constitutional legitimacy of the TRC Law, as it “forced reconciliation” due to the exclusion of victims from the reconciliation process.

Because international norms in transitional justice have yet to be explicitly constructed, this paper analyzes how stances or roles of national judicial institutions in societies affect the interpretation of the existing international standards or precedents of other countries as sources of the international norms. The Constitutional Court of South Africa did not emphasize illegitimacy of the TRC Law based on international norms because incumbent judges of the High Court were reviewing amnesty process to avoid granting “blanket amnesties.” However, the Supreme Court of Nepal, which had been actively applying international human rights norms since 1990s, emphasized the illegitimacy of the TRC Law by referring to international standards because it allowed broad amnesty by lacking reviewing process by judiciaries. These different evaluations of constitutional legitimacy directed the judgements in South Africa and Nepal.

Modern science was derived from the physics of the 17th century. Such a modern science regarded nature as existing independently from the human subjectivity, and assuming such nature and human relations, was going to grasp nature of the object by a system of objective knowledge. It opened the way for an operational rule for nature. Modern technology was based on natural recognition of modern science.

However, contemporary science, which is based on natural recognition that was different from the modern science, emerged in the early 20th century. Quantum mechanics for classical mechanics, another phenomenon of this time, revolutionized natural recognition. Contemporary technology, which accomplished remarkable growth in the late 20th century, is regarded as the result of such a contemporary science in large quantities.

Alongside the establishment of quantum mechanics, Nishida’s philosophy, which is built around the framework of world recognition and logical structure, was born.

The future predicted by the logic of Nishida’s philosophy, is a figure of the global community coming up beyond the transformation of technology. By the transformation of technology that advanced in the late 20th century, the world recognition of Nishida’s philosophy will win a base of existing in the historic world.

The development of nuclear weapons signaled the establishment of contemporary technology. However, the transformation of technology that went ahead through the results of contemporary science as a driving force, made it possible to succeed to the world structure created by nuclear weapon without nuclear weapon. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is an international milestone, as it aspires to establish a world without nuclear weapons. As such, this rhetoric for international peace based on justice and order should be adopted by all states.

This paper analyzes the principles of law regarding nuclear policies of Japan as they relate to constitutional theory, the Japanese government, and judicial precedent.

The analysis addresses three issues that have recently arisen in relation to the Constitution of Japan. The first concerns a principle of law found in the discussion between Shinkun HAKU, a member of the House of Councilors, and Yusuke YOKOBATAKE, Director-General of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, which took place at the Budget Committee of the House of Councilors on March 18, 2016. The point of their discussion was whether it was constitutional for Japan to use nuclear weapons abroad when Japan was not under direct military attack. The second issue concerns nuclear plants under Clause 2, Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, which prohibits the maintenance of land, sea, and air forces, as well as other potential instruments of war. However, it may be violated if nuclear power plants are regarded as war potential. This reasoning derives from the fact that nuclear power plants can have capacity to produce, maintain, and use nuclear weapons.

The third issue concerns constitutional rights and nuclear power plants. Some experts posit that nuclear power plants violate various constitutional rights, such as the right to life, the right of personhood, the environmental right, the rights of future generations, the right to live in peace, the right of equality, and the right to self-government of local residents. In this regard, the analysis also considers some recent judicial precedents on constitutional rights and nuclear power plants, such as one from the Fukui District Court on May 21, 2014.

This paper explores the relation between Article 24 and the Pacifism of the 1946 Constitution of Japan. Article 24 is the provision for family-based rights but does not include a clause for the protection of the family. Activists who criticize the Pacifism of the Constitution have sought an amendment to not only Article 9 but also Article 24. Because they insist that the lack of a clause for a family’s protection causes the crisis of the family’s dissolution as well as Article 9 leads to the crisis of the state’s dissolution.

Besides, the insistence of a family’s protection has been supported not only in Japan but also in the United Nations since 1995. In the United States, protection of the family is commonly known as the family values movement by Christian Right, which emerged in the 1970s. The demand on family protection by the religious right has formed political powers both in Japan and in the United Nations.

This paper compares the issue of family protection in the United Nations with Japan. As a result, it concludes that the protection of the family in both cases means to protect “our” family and to exclude the “enemy’s” family. This line of reasoning is echoed by militarism thought, requires the nation, or “us,” to fight against an enemy nation, or “them.” The Pacifism of the Constitution of Japan declares that all the people of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want. That is to say, the Pacifism of the Constitution denies the friend-foe way of thinking. Hence, Article 24 excludes the clause of the protection of the family and supports the Pacifism of the Constitution with Article 9.

In recent years, campaigns by constitutional revisionists and supporters of the current constitution have been active as the current regime shows great ambition to change the constitution of Japan. After the Asia–Pacific War ended, Japan adopted a democracy-oriented constitution based on universal respect for fundamental human rights, principles of popular sovereignty, and pacifism.

These three principles of the constitution can be distilled to maximum respect for individual dignity. The fundamental element of human rights is the right to live with dignity. Popular sovereignty means that individuals with dignity can form a society through deliberation. Lastly, pacifism refers to the restriction of the use of armed force, such as war, which strips humans of their dignity and mobilizes them as objects of military power.

Despite these values being enshrined in the legal framework, the Japanese society has failed to implement them in practice. Racism, for instance, is completely incompatible with the idea of respecting individual dignity as it establishes each party’s superiority or inferiority based on group identity. Japanese society, in many ways, can be perceived as being “tolerant” of racism. For example, political figures have been accused of committing various racist acts and have not resigned from their respective offices.

Some find it surprising that a politician would not resign in this case but would resign if involved in any other illicit affair. This means that Japanese society, in general, considers racial discrimination as a less serious matter than a personal illicit affair.

Why is it that we disregard these common acts of racism despite having created a legal framework that places maximum importance on individual dignity? One crucial reason is that the idea of the Japanese nation is based on imagined blood relation. To eliminate racism, Japan must transform the idea of the nation from an imagined blood relation to a sense of nationalism that shares the maximum respect for individual dignity, which is the fundamental philosophy of the constitution.

“Territorial” thought divides the world into “us” versus “them,” often leading people to retreat from complex society and withdraw into closed territory that is protected from uncertainty. This phenomenon is found not only in rising antiimmigrant sentiment but also in our knowledge that tends to employ solid models to the unstable world by eliminating the unknown. The Fukushima nuclear disaster, for example, revealed the limitation of such knowledge. A scientific approach cannot provide full certainty regarding operating nuclear plants or investigating the health risks of radiation. The moral law is also inapplicable when a complexity of society distracts us from feeling responsible to others. This urges the need for another type of thought which reflects uncertainty.

While the “territorial” nature of conventional science and moral philosophy discounts the complexity and vulnerability of life, this paper introduces a strand of contemporary philosophy called post-humanism and new materialism. It is radically “non-territorial” thought that deconstructs the notion of a rational subject with a clear identity and intention. Although such entities are often regarded as disempowered, the paper claims that they possess ethico-political agency. The case in point is political practices in the post-Fukushima anti-nuclear movement. In this instance, the protesters took to the street based on emotional turmoil, such as shock, anger, and regret. Those emotional experiences were initially personal, but the activism provided a space for each participant to feel the pain of others, share a passion and create something new together. Through encountering others on the street, they formed a heterogeneous “assemblage” and engage in politics without consistent ideology.

The paper questions a dishonest habit of scholars who stand outside of the phenomenon they observe and reduce changing reality to an invariable model, thereby downplaying the precarity of our lives. As peace studies researchers, we need to put ourselves in the middle of uncertainty, experiment with affirming the dignity of proximate bodies, and weave knowledge together from within.

The democratization and decentralization that has spread among many developing countries, for instance, the Philippines, has led to the problem of “Local Bossism.” The term refers to elite domination of the local political economy based on a monopoly of political power that gives the local economic elite the authority to allocate national resources in the locality. Local elites tend to win elections through patron-client relationships which involve election strategies such as vote-buying and coercion. They also attempt to accumulate wealth by abusing power delegated to local chief executives through decentralization. This includes unfair preferential treatment of their family members, cronies, and clients, without maintaining the welfare of local poor and “ordinary” residents. Monopoly of political power and dominance of development shares by local elites prevents fair, just socioeconomic development that contributes to improvement of poor, ordinary residents’ lives. However, local democratic political power that explains policies and philosophy to voters and obtains consent from them started to emerge in the Philippines with the rise of civil society forces that do improve lives of poor or ordinary residents. This local democratic political power established bonds of trust with local residents and implemented sound development through good governance that contributes to improving poor and ordinary residents’ lives. This case demonstrates the possibility of avoiding maldevelopment through political reform encouraged by deepening democracy and development of civil society, even in other developing countries with similar problems post democratization and decentralization.

This paper discusses how national courts interpret and apply constitutional norms governing policies of transitional justice through a comparative study on the systems of evaluations on the constitutional legitimacy of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission) Laws provided by the highest courts in South Africa and Nepal. Both countries’ TRC Laws authorized TRCs to grant amnesty. However, although the Constitutional Court of South Africa admitted constitutionality of the TRC Law in 1996, the Supreme Court of Nepal denied it in 2014 and again in 2015.

Through reviewing previous research on “transitional constitutionalism,” this paper argues that the basis of constitutional legitimacy can be found in both national and international norms during the period of transition. Regarding national norms, the Constitutional Court of South Africa legitimized the TRC Law, as it pursued constitutional values rendered by the Interim Constitution because a social context entailed participation of victims for promoting reconciliation. However, the Supreme Court of Nepal denied constitutional legitimacy of the TRC Law, as it “forced reconciliation” due to the exclusion of victims from the reconciliation process.

Because international norms in transitional justice have yet to be explicitly constructed, this paper analyzes how stances or roles of national judicial institutions in societies affect the interpretation of the existing international standards or precedents of other countries as sources of the international norms. The Constitutional Court of South Africa did not emphasize illegitimacy of the TRC Law based on international norms because incumbent judges of the High Court were reviewing amnesty process to avoid granting “blanket amnesties.” However, the Supreme Court of Nepal, which had been actively applying international human rights norms since 1990s, emphasized the illegitimacy of the TRC Law by referring to international standards because it allowed broad amnesty by lacking reviewing process by judiciaries. These different evaluations of constitutional legitimacy directed the judgements in South Africa and Nepal.