A liberal political regime is an important precondition for peace movements to flourish as in Britain of the 19^th century. Japan, as a latecomer in the modern world, adopted an aggressive militarist policy under the authoritarian regime in the late 19^th century. Thus, the earliest peace movements in Japan, which appeared around the turn of the century, took it upon the daring struggle against the towering militarism, and advocated absolute pacifism and a remarkably cosmopolitan outlook; but their social impact was negligible till the end of the Second World War.
The collapse of a militarist Japan in 1945 and the following enactment of the liberal peace constitution brought forth favorable conditions for peace movements. In fact, Ban-the-A-and-H-Bomb Campaign in the mid 1950’s rallied unprecedentedly wide and strong popular support and exerted a significant influence on Japan’s security policy.
However, such seemingly advantageous conditions to peace movements had their own hazards. The strong antiwar sentiment in postwar Japan largely came from the devastating national war experience. Therefore, peace groups very often shied away from immediate security issues in East Asia; and national stories of wartime hard suffering turned a blind eye to even harder indignation of neighboring nations against Japan’s militarist records. In addition, national peace organizations were torn apart in line with the cold war ideological split, and thus lacked the ability to mobilize the grassroots antiwar sentiment effectively.
From around the end of the cold war, some new trends turned up in Japanese peace movements. First, local groups virtually took over longstanding national groups in peace activities. It is largely because locality became the front line between the security of people’s daily life and the growing frequency of US military activities in and around Japan. The most important case was the concentration of US military bases in Okinawa. This problem came to attract national attention by virtue of an unbending Okinawan minority of antiwar landowners. Second, the problem of Japan’s war responsibility was at last widely acknowledged among the Japanese public. Reconciliation with neighboring nations was set as a distinct goal of peace activities. Third, peace activists began to propose an alternative security policy. They stress the importance of establishing the rule of law in the unstable security environment of East Asia.
In short, Japanese peace movements began to address the long-overdue problem of international solidarity in East Asia and to assume the role of a policy initiator.

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In the wake of the gang rape of a teenage girl by U.S. marines in Okinawa in 1995, local feminists led protests against the insecurity experienced by women and girls in the name of national security, defining sexual assaults by U. S. soldiers as “structural violence” caused by the presence of a military that upheld militarism and sexism. It was also during this time that the invisibility and impunity of sexual violence under conflicts was problematized around the world, leading to the strengthening of international institutions to address the issue. However, after 20 years, sexual assaults by U.S. military-related persons (including soldiers, civilian workers, and their families) in Japan continue to occur despite repeated promises of prevention by both governments in the face of the deepening of U.S.Japan military cooperation. How much has the state response to military sexual violence changed in practice?

This paper examines Japanese criminal justice responses to sexual assaults committed by U.S. military-related persons stationed in Japan since 2000, focusing on the criminal justice system as a major institution through which sexual violence by allied forces is normalized despite the strengthened international norms on women’s rights in international security. Much literature points to the unequal nature of the Status of Forces Agreement, restricting the sovereign power of Japan as well as subordinating the practices of Japanese authorities, as a major factor leading to the impunity of crimes committed by U.S. military-related persons.

Although the unequal relationship with the United States affects the way those crimes are handled, one should not neglect how Japanʼs discriminative sexual violence laws and institutional practices facilitate Japanese authorities in dropping charges in more than 80% of sexual assault cases.

By examining the data of Japanese criminal justice institutions, this paper confirms that sexual assaults by U.S. military-related persons continue to pose a constant threat to communities that host military bases, and impunity is rampant even after the 1995 gang rape case, although access to the information of the U.S. military is limited. Further, by examining cases in which Japanese prosecutors have failed to indict, the author discusses how discriminative institutional arrangements, inappropriate investigation practices, and social biases play crucial roles in discouraging victims to file complaints and facilitate the dropping of charges by prosecutors. Finally, the author discusses how the Japanese state and the U.S. military jointly construct an image of the U.S. military as a well-disciplined force and thus legitimize the failure of the Japanese state to indict sexual assaults, which further denies justice to the victims.

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Professor Saburo Ienaga brought a set of suits against the textbook authorization system operated by the Ministry of Education as illegal and unconstitutional. Under the 1955 system the suits became an arena of ideological controversies as to who has the right to children's education, the state or people. The "People's right to education" camp argued that teachers of primary and secondary schools, as well as professors in higher institutions, should enjoy academic freedom of teaching. During the development of the trial, the justification for this argument changed. Emphasizing children's right to learn, in turn, they asserted freedom of teaching on the ground that teachers can provide education adapted to each child's stage of development. According to this theory, because education is a self-directed activity based on educational values, it therefore should avoid any intervention by government. Although apolitical it might seem, paradoxically, this theoretical transition intensified the political conflict between the two camps. The new standpoint of "people's right to education" did not make any modification of roles that teachers as laboring class should play in the nation's united front. The textbook trial as mass movement reflected the Japanese Communist Party's political strategy, which ordained the struggle against both American imperialism and half-subjugated Japanese monopoly capitalism as the primary purpose.

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