Nostalgia and Its Futures: The Liberal Democratic Party’s Draft Constitution for Japan and the Marginalization of the Rule of Law

We are pleased to invite you to a lecture (held in English) by Keisuke Mark Abe from the Seikei University Faculty of Law titled: The Liberal Democratic Party’s Draft Constitution for Japan and the Marginalization of the Rule of Law.

Annotation:

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its allies won sweeping victories in the Parliamentary elections in 2016 and 2017, achieving the two-thirds super-majority necessary for putting constitutional change to a national referendum. For the first time in Japanese history, it has enough votes to propose a constitutional revision. Political changes towards such direction have been taking place for some time. The proposed changes would strip Japanese people of many of their rights and fundamentally redefine the core principles of the 1947 constitution.  Will Japan be able to defend its constitution? And can Abe administration initiate legal changes without raising the specter of nationalism? My lecture will explore these and related topics and forecast the future of the rule of law in Japan.