Abstract
Japanese environmental foreign policy, as does other foreign policy, evolves out of intertwined domestic and international factors. The well-being and economic prosperity of Japanese are ever heavily dependent on a stable international political and economic order. Free and open access to and steady supply of food and energy are Japan’s primary security concerns. As to the diplomatic means for sustaining economic prosperity, postwar political arrangements continue to set its parameters. The no-war clause of the Constitution has prohibited Japan from taking any militarily aggressive foreign policy; it has abided by the spirit and obligation stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations advocating peaceful resolution of international disputes.1 At the same time, the U.S.-Japan security treaty has continuously provided Japan with military security as one of the regional security arrangements that comes within the purview of the UN Charter.2 The established consensus about Japan’s postwar foreign policy is that, although it has the right to defend itself, Japan cannot take part in any collective security activity. Since the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War of 1991, however, this foreign policy framework has come under scrutiny both inside and outside Japan.
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Notes
Helmut Weidner, “Japanese Environmental Policy in an International Perspective: Lessons for a Preventive Approach,” in Environmental Policy in Japan, eds. Shigeto Tsuru and Helmut Weidner (Berlin: Edition Sigma, 1989), pp. 481–82.
OECD, Environmental Policies in Japan (Paris: OECD, 1977), p. 83.
Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth (NY: Universe Books, 1972); Gerald O. Barney, The Global 2000 Report to the President of the United States (Oxford: Pergamon, 1980).
The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 8. This concept itself, however, had already been introduced in The World Conservation Strategy, compiled and published in 1980 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Tanaka Tsutomu, “Chikyuyteki kibo no kankyo mondai ni taisuru waga kuni no taio” [Japan’s Response to Global Environmental Problems], Kikan kankyo kenkyu (Tokyo: Environmental Research Center) 33 (1981), p. 7.
Interview with Hara Bunbei, speaker of the House of Councilors (and former director general of the Environment Agency) on 2 September 1993. The Environment Agency (EA), Kankyo-cho nijunen shi/The Twenty-Year History of the Environment Agency (Tokyo: Gyosei, 1991), p. 366; and the EA, The Quality of the Environment (1992), p. 236.
Lynton Caldwell, International Environmental Policy (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), p. 207.
Wolfgang Sachs, “Environment,” in The Development Dictionary, ed. Wolfgang Sachs (London: Zed Books, 1992), p. 36.
Lester Brown, “The Illusion of Progress,” in State of the World: 1990, eds. Lester Brown et al. (NY: W. W. Norton and Company, 1990), p. 13.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Global Environmental Section of Economic Division in the United Nations Bureau (Japan), ed., Chikyu kankyo sengenshu [Collected Declarations on the Global Environment] (Tokyo: Ministry of Finance Printing Bureau, 1991), pp. 53–61.
Environment Agency (EA) Planning Division, Global Environment Department, Chikyu kankyo jidai [The Era of Global Environment] (Tokyo: Gyosei, 1990), pp. 247–63.
For instance, see Economic Planning Agency, Kokumin keizai keisan nenpo 1993 [Annual Report of National Economic Account 1993] (Tokyo: Ministry of Finance Printing Bureau, 1993).
Mago’ori Akihiko and Shigeri Katsuhiko (Illustration), “Kaihatsu-ha kara no henshin: Jiminto shin-kankyo zoku no nerai” [Objective of New LDP Environmental Policy Specialists: Transformation from Advocates of Development], AERA 5:22 (2 June 1992): 6–9.
J. A. A. Stockwin et al., Dynamic and Immobilist Politics in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988), pp. 1, 15.
Mago’ori and Shigeri, 1992; and Akira Sato, “The Eve of Dissolution of A Political Party,” AERA 5:13 (24 March 1992): 7.
Ozawa Ichiro, Nihon Kaizo keikaku (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1993) [English translation, Blueprint for A New Japan: The Rethinking of a Nation (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994)]. Some recent major changes in Japanese political party politics are the establishments of Minshuto (Democratic Party) in September 1996, which is led by Kan Naoto and Hatoyama Yukio, and Jiyuto (Liberal Party) in January 1998, which is led by Ozawa. Jiyuto was born after the split of Shinshinto in December 1997, three years after its establishment. And at the same time, the former Komeito politicians, who once joined and then left Shinshinto, formed Shinto Heiwa (New Party Peace). Yet, in November 1998, Shinto Heiwa and Komeito were reunified. As of April 1999, the Democratic Party is the largest opposition party (93 lower house and 49 upper house representatives), followed by the Liberal Party (40 and 12) and the Clean Government Party (Komeito: 38 and 24). The LDP and Liberal Party have been forming a policy alliance and obtained the stable majority in the lower house (with 264 LDP members). However, they cannot reach the majority in the upper house (with 104 LDP members). Seeking stable and speedy Diet deliberations, the LDP is approaching Komeito. In this context, Komeito now has a casting vote in Japan’s political party politics.
For a more detailed account (and for the following section on the Japanese business sector’s response), for instance, see Hiroshi Ohta, Japan’s Politics and Diplomacy of Climate Change (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1995), pp. 219–38.
OECF, What’s the OECF (Tokyo: OECF, 1990), p. 3.
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© 2000 Inoguchi Takashi and Purnendra Jain
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Hiroshi, O. (2000). Japanese Environmental Foreign Policy. In: Takashi, I., Jain, P. (eds) Japanese Foreign Policy Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62529-1_6
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