Japan's human security agenda and its domestic human rights policies

Abstract

This article examines whether and how new approaches to human rights in the 1990s finally demonstrate the implementation of the commitment made by the Japanese government in the post-war constitution and whether these changes constitute the application of a human security agenda. It illustrates, across a range of case studies from Korean residents to children's rights, how different government and civil society activists have responded to international norms and influenced their domestic implementation. In conclusion, it compares the impact of these changes to an espoused commitment to human security since the 1990s.