Japan

Abstract

While successive Japanese governments have suggested they should contribute greater numbers of soldiers to UN peacekeeping operations such ambitions have run up against powerful constitutional constraints. This chapter provides an overview of Japan’s involvement in international peacekeeping operations and discusses some of the major debates about how, and whether, its participation might be enhanced. Since the early 1990s, various legal reforms, including the Peacekeeping Operations Law (1992), have enabled Japan’s Self-Defence Force (SDF) to deploy in UN peacekeeping operations such as in Cambodia, the Golan Heights, and East Timor. Significant improvements to the SDF’s crisis management, logistics, and rapid deployment capabilities have made it a more useful contributor to such operations. Japan also has several comparative advantages with regard to civilian peacebuilding capacities. Nevertheless, Japan continues to punch below its potential weight with regard to UN peacekeeping.