What is Article 9 ? (3)
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. The key words used here are all in the negative. Non-reliance on war, non-possession of armed forces, non-recognition of the state’s right of belligerency... we witness the misery, brutalities and absurdity of wars, civil war and terrorism that are still ongoing in many parts of the world. To be able to confront those evils, we must adopt a very decisive denial of war and the army. Nothing Is more suitable for that role than Article 9. That is why we ask the international community to adopt a resolution in support of (seconding) Article 9 in the UN General Assembly. The ultimate goal of our campaign is to realize and establish a genuine System of Collective Security as stipulated in the UN Charter. For our project to be successful, we want to apply a new, in-depth interpretation of Article 9 to facilitate its dissemination and worldwide acceptance. Here is a summary of our reinterpretation. Article 9 starts with:“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order”.This justice corresponds no doubt to the international law of the UN Charter,and this order is the order secured by an international organization which makes the justice truly effective.These words can be said to constitute a huge affirmative balanced with the following three negatives. As to so-called non-possession of armed forces: these armed forces include the ones by which individual nations protect their own nations.Therefore this provision is meant to level the ground toward the establishment of a genuine International Police which "protect all nations by all nations." As to non-recognition of the state’s right of belligerency: this right is interpreted as having as its destination the Security Council of the UN, which can engage in peace-keeping operations.In other words, this provision aims at the limitation of national sovereignty in order for the UNSC to become the ultimate responsible for maintaining international peace and security. We want to stimulate discussions about the validity and effectiveness of this interpretation of ours among citizens and experts.We want to use YouTube videos like this one as a tool to promote the purpose of our Campaign from now on.Our idea may sound arbitrary and capricious.The historical evidence suggests that this was precisely what Kijuro Shidehara had in mind 75 years ago.