Japan’s Post-War Constitution. Origins, Protagonists and Controversies

Japan was an occupied country from 1945 to 1952. It regained full independence after the San Francisco Peace Treaty went into force in 1952. Okinawa, however, was returned to Japan only in 1972 and until today the US never really ‘left’ Japan completely. Still today, roughly 47.000 US military troops are stationed on Japanese territory pro- viding Japan with military security in the framework of the so-called US-Japan Security Treaty adopted in 1952 and revised in 1960. The most important ‘heritage’ of seven years of US occupation is without a doubt Japan’s post-war constitution and its ‘pacifist’ or ‘war- renouncing’ Article 9 which does not allow the country to maintain armed forces other than for the defense of Japanese territory. Japan’s ‘pacifist’ post-war constitution was promulgated on November 3, 1946, and took effect six months later on the May 3, 1947 replacing the 1889 so-called “Imperial Constitution of Great Japan” (“Dai Nihon Teikoku Kempo”).