International Law, Human Rights, and Japanese Law: The Impact of International Law on Japanese Law (review)

International Law, Human Rights, and Japanese Law: The Impact of International Law on Japanese Law, by Yuji Iwasawa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) xli + 355 pp.

Yuji Iwasawa's book examines the impact of international human rights law and politics on Japan's domestic law regarding human rights. This is presented as illustration of the relationships across the world among international law (including international customary law), domestic constitutional and statutory law, and the politics of progress in the protection of the individual's human rights. This work, the "culmination of work extending over a period of nearly two decades,"¹ is a major contribution to world scholarship in the fields of international law, comparative law, and Japanese law and politics; it deserves to be called "a classic" and the single most important English-language source in its subject area. Professor Iwasawa introduces the reader to the rich lode of Japanese scholarship on general issues of international law and its linkages with internal law as well as specific human rights issues in Japan.

In 1985 Professor Iwasawa, now of the University of Tokyo, published a book on the domestic applicability of treaties, in general and in Japan.² Like most of the best work done by Japanese legal scholars, this book appeared only in Japanese; Iwasawa's English-language writings were limited to a few excellent articles on specific issues prior to the book under review. (Incidentally, he is one of the few most competent in English of all Japan's law and social science scholars.) Very few foreign students of Japanese law and politics are at home reading the Japanese-language legal literature. Some of Japan's international law cases have been available in English in the Japanese Annual of International Law since 1959, but that source is not easily accessible outside Japan. The International Law Reports and other possible outlets, have very seldom reproduced Japanese cases (none since 1975), although, as Iwasawa's discussion makes clear, some court cases and other developments in Japan merit the attention of the broader legal community, and their number is rapidly increasing. Happily, in other areas of Japanese law a substantial body of original work has been authored in the English-speaking countries and Western Europe; a fair number of cases have been translated into English, most notably in the Asian Law Series of the University of Washington Press.³ Also meriting mention for its translations is the Japanese American Society for Legal Studies, long based at the University of Washington School of Law and the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Law; the Japanese-language counterpart is Amerika Ho.

Under Article 98 (2) of the 1947 Constitution of Japan, "Treaties concluded by Japan and established laws of nations shall be faithfully observed."⁴ "An overwhelming majority of (Japan's) scholars"⁵ agree that treaties have domestic legal force in Japan and, in case of a conflict of laws, override domestic statutory law enacted by parliament (the Diet). The author explains concisely the processes of concluding and ratifying treaties and other international agreements in Japan.

Pursuant to Japan's 1979 ratification of the United Nations' International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), notable advances in Japan's human rights law have been achieved, at least in part to comply with the International Bill of Human Rights. Regarding freedom of expression under law and some other human rights, Japan's record has been among the best in the world. In earlier decades the government was cautious, even "defensive,"⁶ about ratifying conventions and participating in UN human rights reporting and debate, but by 2000 it gave much higher priority to human rights questions at home and abroad. For example, Japan was represented before the UN Commission on Human Rights by more senior officials, and her required periodic performance...