Rising sun sinks low on human rights

The sun’s not shining on Japan’s rights record - neither on treatment of minorities and prisoners, nor on past abuses

At the same time as Japan redoubles its efforts to gain a seat on the UN Security Council, its relations with regional neighbours and international standing have hit a new low. China and South Korea have declared their opposition to Japan's Security Council bid, even before there has been any serious consideration of the Secretary-General’s (or High Level Panel's) proposals for reform. This comes amid renewed allegations that Japanese school textbooks distort history by sanitising atrocities committed by Japan's armed forces during World War II and by claiming sovereignty over islands that for centuries have been the home of Korean nationals (Dokdo). The Chinese emphasised their point with massive anti-Japanese street protests in Beijing and other cities last weekend. 

Another worrying example of Japan's apparently revisionist attitude to WWII history is its long-standing denial of legal responsibility for the sexual enslavement of Korean and other women ("comfort women") by the Japanese military, and its refusal to prosecute the perpetrators or adequately compensate the victims. 

As Japan begins a fresh campaign for elevation to the world body's highest stage, it is time to review its human rights record. Security Council membership is of course not the sole preserve of virtuous States, but if human rights are to become one of the three pillars of the UN, as the Secretary-General has proposed, then would-be supporters of the Japanese bid might like to be aware of that country's record in this area. 

Japan is the wealthiest country in its region and the second largest national economy in the world. It is of course also the second largest financial contributor to the UN. Japan has a commendable record of ratifying international human rights conventions, becoming a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985, the International Convention Against Racism (ICERD) in 1995, the Convention Against Torture (CAT) in 1999 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 2004. It has yet to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. 

This enthusiasm for international conventions has not been matched on the domestic front, however. Japan still has no national human rights institution. The Human Rights Committee recommended in 1998 that it should establish one "without delay", but this has not been done. There was a Bill for a national human rights institution in 2002, but this was widely panned for placing the proposed body under the control of the Ministry of Justice, limiting its mandate over public authorities to complaints of discrimination and physical violence, and subjecting the media to a draconian "special relief procedure."  

In 2004, the Committee on the Rights of the Child noted that the same Bill was due to be resubmitted to the Japanese Diet, and expressed concern regarding the body's likely independence, because it was still proposed to be responsible to the Minister of Justice. The CRC recommended that Japan "[r]eview the Human Rights Protection Bill to ensure that the planned Human Rights Commission will be an independent and effective mechanism in accordance with the [Paris Principles]". 

Japan is also one of those countries that still retains the death penalty. This is despite ritual condemnation of capital punishment by the Commission on Human Rights in every year since 1997. The Council of Europe has also urged Japan to abolish the death penalty, as has the Human Rights Committee, which also expressed serious concern regarding the conditions under which prisoners are held on death row. 

Then there is the treatment of criminal suspects and remand prisoners. The Human Rights Committee noted in 1998 that suspects may be detained by Japanese police for up to 23 days before being brought before a court, there are no rules limiting the duration of interrogation or requiring the presence of a lawyer, the grounds for obtaining habeas corpus are narrow and a large number of convictions in criminal trials are based on confessions.  

Has anything changed in the intervening seven years? Cases publicised recently suggest not. Amnesty International took up the cause last year of three activists who were arrested and detained for distributing leaflets in western Tokyo opposing the deployment of the Japanese Self Defence Forces to Iraq. The three were apparently charged with trespassing and subjected to daily interrogation without a lawyer for a number of weeks.  

In March 2005, Japan's Supreme Court dismissed a special protest filed by Mr. Kazuo Ishikawa, by which he sought to challenge his conviction in 1963 for the murder of a schoolgirl in the city of Sayama. Mr. Ishikawa served 32 years in prison for the offence, despite alleging that police forced him to make a false confession. He has continued to maintain his innocence, but it appears the judicial authorities have repeatedly refused to examine evidence that the charges were false or to disclose all evidence held by the prosecution to the defence. 

Finally, we come to the treatment of migrant workers and indigenous peoples. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) noted in 2001 that Japan's latest report to it lacked information on the ethnic composition of the population. No information was given on social and economic indicators of the well-being of minorities.  

Article 14 of Japan's Constitution provides that all people are equal before the law. Far from affording them "equal" treatment, however, Japan has at best been even-handed in its systematic neglect of the rights and interests of minority groups. Perceptions of Japan as an ethnically homogeneous society contrast starkly with the reality that, since WWII, it has been home to over half a million ethnic Koreans (rising to an estimated 700,000 in 1990); and through the 1990s it experienced an influx of over 200,000 immigrant workers from Brazil (many of mixed Japanese and Brazilian ancestry). There are approximately 1.7 million foreign workers living in Japan today. 

In addition, Japan has a number of indigenous minorities, including the Ainu people, descended from the first inhabitants of the northern-most islands, and the Okinawans in the south west - as well as the Burakumin community, which is a distinct caste group identified by descent, poverty and the menial nature of the work they typically performed in the past. 

The CERD Committee further noted its disagreement with Japan's interpretation of the term "descent" in the ICERD, which would have denied protection from discrimination to caste groups like the Burakumin. It is no coincidence that Mr. Ishikawa, whose case was referred to above, is a Buraku. 

The CERD Committee expressed concern regarding discrimination against Japan's Korean minority, including pressure placed on them to adopt Japanese names, and obstacles preventing Korean and other students of international schools from entering Japanese universities (such as non-recognition of studies in the Korean language). It also referred to the situation of the indigenous Ainu, and recommended that further steps be taken to promote their rights, including ratification of the ILO Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. 

It seems that Japan's only response to the criticisms of the Human Rights Committee in 1998 and the CERD Committee in 2001 has been to delay its submission of subsequent reports. However, the Committee on the Rights of the Child took up the same themes in 2004, expressing concern that "societal discrimination persists against girls, children with disabilities, Amerasian, Korean, Buraku and Ainu children and other minority groups, and children of migrant workers." The CRC Committee suggested public education and awareness campaigns as one means to address this. 

Both the CRC and the CERD Committees have questioned Japan's stance that it does not need legislation to implement the international conventions its ratifies because Article 98 of the Japanese Constitution provides that conventions ratified by the State automatically become part of domestic law. The Committees' concern in either case was that the conventions have rarely, if ever, been referred to by the Japanese courts.The CERD Committee went further - calling for the enactment of a law to explicitly criminalise racial discrimination.  

One notable exception to the lack of application of the ICERD in Japan was the 1999 case of Brazilian immigrant, Ms. Ana Bortz, who sued the owner of a jewellery store in Hammatsu after he demanded that she leave his shop because she was a foreigner. In a judgment that grabbed headlines both at home and abroad, a District Court judge ruled that, in the absence of a domestic anti-discrimination law, ICERD serves as the standard by which cases of racial discrimination must be judged in Japan. He awarded Ms. Bortz Y1,500,000 ($US12,500). The shop owner did not appeal, and human rights activists hailed the case as a landmark. The excitement was short-lived, however, and the municipal and national governments still declined to legislate. 

In terms of economic prosperity and the provision of international development aid, Japan is the leader in its region. On a per capita basis, it is among the wealthiest nations on the planet. Why then is there so little investment in human rights?  

And what should the international community make of the nationalistic undertones that can be heard in the textbook scandal and ‘comfort women’ fiasco?  

Most of all, as the UN strives for greater legitimacy and relevance, what exactly are the credentials that Japan would bring to a reformed Security Council?

 Human Rights Features