Decisions in Japan to use Military Force or Participate in Multinational Peacekeeping Operations

2019 ◽  
pp. 827-842
Author(s):  
Tadashi Mori
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Existential Crisis ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Article 9 ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Japanese Law ◽  
Individual Self

This chapter describes the law in Japan governing the country’s use of military force and participation in multinational peacekeeping operations. Although Article 9 of Japan’s post–World War II constitution seems to disallow the development of armed forces, the country has long maintained limited armed forces for purposes of self-defense. According to the Japanese government’s traditional constitutional interpretation, these forces can only be used when necessary to repel an armed attack on Japan. Under this interpretation, Japan can use armed force only for individual self-defense, not for collective self-defense or collective security. In addition, although Japanese law since the 1990s has allowed for some participation of Japanese forces in multinational peacekeeping operations, this allowance has been very limited. In 2015, however, Japan enacted two important statutes that broaden the government’s ability to use the country’s armed forces. One statute allows the country for the first time to exercise a right of collective self-defense, although the legislation only permits Japan to exercise this right for the purpose of ensuring its survival and protecting its people in situations that are called “existential crisis situations.” The other statute broadens the ability of Japanese forces to engage in various support activities in multinational peacekeeping operations. Because of Article 9 of the Constitution, however, Japan’s ability to use its military is still substantially more limited than for many other countries.

scholarly journals Biden Administration Relies on Constitutional Authority and Unwilling or Unable Theory of Self-Defense for Airstrikes in Syria

2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-572
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
Presidential Approval ◽  
War Powers ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Drone Strikes ◽  
Individual Self

On February 25, 2021, the United States conducted a strike targeting Iranian-backed militia group facilities in Syria. The strike, which came in response to a February 15, 2021 attack on U.S. interests in Iraq, marked the Biden administration's first known exercise of executive war powers. As domestic authority for the strike, President Joseph Biden, Jr. cited his authority under Article II of the U.S. Constitution and did not rely on the 2001 or 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs). For international legal authority, Biden relied on individual self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, stating that Syria was “unwilling or unable” to prevent further attacks on the United States by these non-state actors within its territory. The strikes garnered mixed reactions from Congress, where efforts are underway to repeal or reform extant AUMFs as well as the War Powers Resolution (WPR). The Biden administration is also undertaking a review of current U.S. military policy on the use of force, and during this process, it has prohibited drone strikes outside of conventional battlefields, absent presidential approval.

Can Wars Be Fought Justly? The Necessity Condition Put to the Test

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Statman
Keyword(s):  
Jus In Bello ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
Widespread View

AbstractAccording to a widespread view, the same constraints that limit the use of otherwise immoral measures in individual self-defense apply to collective self-defense too. I try to show that this view has radical implications at the level of jus in bello, implications which have not been fully appreciated. In particular, if the necessity condition must be satisfied in all cases of killing in war, then most fighting would turn out to be unjust. One way to avoid this result is to adopt a contractualist view of killing in war, a view which interprets the necessity condition in a way that is more permissive with regard to killing combatants in war. At least in this respect, a contractualist view of killing in war has an advantage over other candidates in explaining how wars might be fought justly.

Self-Defense

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ellen O’Connell
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Law ◽  
Computer Network ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Computer Network Attacks

Humanity has always recognized that individuals should have the right to defend themselves from violence. In international law this basic normative intuition is codified for states in the Charter of the United Nations, Article 51 (see Randelzhofer 2002, cited under Conditions in Article 51). Article 51 is an exception to the Charter’s general prohibition on the use of force found in Article 2(4). The prohibition on the use of force is at the heart of the Charter, given that the most fundamental aim of the Charter and the UN organization created by the Charter is to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” (Preamble). It stands to reason that any right to use force as an exception to the general prohibition on resort to force would be narrow. Article 51 permits a state to act in unilateral or collective self-defense only “if an armed attack occurs.” This article concerns the international law exception to the prohibition on force for self-defense. The commentary on Article 51 is extensive and generally falls into one of two categories: first, scholarship, judicial decisions, and government policies that support Article 51’s plain terms; second, scholarship and government policies that advocate expanding the right to use force beyond Article 51’s provisions. The writers in these two categories have various labels but are most commonly referred to as the “strict” interpreters versus the “broad” interpreters. One author refers to the groups as the “restrictivists” versus the “antirestrictivists.” The divergence of views can be explained to some extent by the differing assessments writers make about the utility of resort to military force. The UN Charter was drafted at the end of World War II, when confidence in military force was certainly low and commitment to ending the use of force was high. Fifty years later, perhaps frustrated by the lack of success with other means, writers (especially in a few militarily powerful states) urged relaxing the rules against force to respond to terrorism, weapons programs, and computer network attacks. Some try to justify force under the principles of necessity and proportionality, rules beyond the UN Charter but equally important in the long history of normative thinking on killing in self-defense.

UN Police Action in Lieu of War: “The Old Order Changeth”

1991 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Franck ◽  
Faiza Patel
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Armed Attack ◽  
Political Independence ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Old Order ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Police Action ◽  
United Nations System ◽  
Nations System

The United Nations system is an elegant, carefully crafted instrument to make war illegal and unnecessary. To this end, in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, members are required to “refrain … from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”If such force is used despite that prohibition, the Charter envisages two kinds of military remedies: wars of self-defense and police actions. Article 51 authorizes members to use military force in exercise of the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs” in violation of Article 2(4). This provision merely recognizes that the old war system may still be needed until the new system of global policing can secure the peace for all.

scholarly journals The Historical Background to Japan’s Peacekeeping Policy from the Early Postwar Era to the Establishment of the PKO Act 1945–1992

2022 ◽  
pp. 21-38
Author(s):  
Hiromi Nagata Fujishige ◽  
Yuji Uesugi ◽  
Tomoaki Honda
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
World War ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractIn this chapter, we will review the evolution of Japan’s peacekeeping policy from the immediate aftermath of Japan’s defeat in 1945 to the enactment of the Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) Act in 1992. In the first section, we will look at the historical background during the postwar period (in this book, the term “postwar” denotes the period in Japan from its defeat in World War II in 1945 to the end of the Cold War in around 1990), including the rise of anti-militarism, the hidden rearmament, the establishment of the de facto ban on overseas military dispatch, the rejection of the UN’s request for the Self-Defense Forces’ (SDF’s) deployment to a United Nations Peacekeeping Operation (UNPKO) and the aborted plan to dispatch a minesweeper to the Persian Gulf. This section will also examine the Government of Japan’s legal standpoint about the possibility of SDF deployment to a UNPKO. In the second section, we will clarify how the Gulf Crisis/War in 1990–1991 made Japan abandon the taboo against overseas military dispatch. Then, we will review the course of the challenging lawmaking process of the PKO Act, which was finally passed in June 1992. Lastly, we will see the restrictions inserted into the PKO Act, such as the so-called Five Principles.

scholarly journals FEATURES OF USING THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE FOR STATEHOOD, 1918-1919, IN THE CREATION OF UKRAINIAN NATIONAL SELF-DEFENSE, 1943

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 32-40
Author(s):  
Ihor DROHOBYTSKYI
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
World War ◽  
Armed Struggle ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Regular Army ◽  
Resistance Movement

The article covers some aspects of the use of military experience of Ukrainian armed groups of the period of the national liberation struggle 1917–1921 by the members of the nationalist wing of the national resistance movement during World War II. Much attention is given to measures aimed at the development of tactical units of the structure of the Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (Ukrainska Narodna Samooborona; UNS) in the second half of 1943 in Galicia. These facts are analyzed in the context of the development of a national army concept among leaders of Ukrainian nationalists at the various stages of the Nazi-Soviet war (1941–1945). The main stages of their vision evolution of the development process of the domestic armed forces are outlined. The author highlights the reasons and the factors of shifting focus from the idea of creating a regular army to the idea of deploying a partisan form of struggle against the occupation regimes, characterized the role of the armed forces in the implementation of the idea of national statehood. The specifics of the ideological motive of the armed struggle are revealed with emphasis on the tradition of struggle for the nation's interest. The paper also concentrates on external and internal preconditions for expanding the geography of armed resistance to the occupiers, regional specifics in the processes of deployment of military structures run by the nationalist wing of the Ukrainian resistance movement. Keywords tradition, statehood, armed forces, resistance, nationalism.

II. Policy Formulation for National Security

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney W. Souers
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
Economic Effect ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
World War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Military Campaign

The National Security Council, created by the National Security Act of 1947, is the instrument through which the President obtains the collective advice of the appropriate officials of the executive branch concerning the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security. An outline of the genesis of this new governmental agency will indicate in part its present rôle.Even before World War II, a few far-sighted men were seeking for a means of correlating our foreign policy with our military and economic capabilities. During the war, as military operations began to have an increasing political and economic effect, the pressure for such a correlation increased. It became apparent that the conduct of the war involved more than a purely military campaign to defeat the enemy's armed forces. Questions arose of war aims, of occupational policies, of relations with governments-in-exile and former enemy states, of the postwar international situation with its implications for our security, and of complicated international machinery.

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