Japanese Role in PKO and Humanitarian Assistance

Abstract

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs identifies the “two main pillars of Japan’s international peace efforts” as contributions to international humanitarian relief operations and participation in UN peacekeeping operations (PKO), and it could be argued that these efforts have constituted some of the more positive aspects in the evolution of Japan’s foreign policy in the 1990s. Prompted by international negative reaction to Japan’s immobility in the run up to and during the Gulf War, the implementation of the International Peace Cooperation Law (IPCL) in 1992 has resulted in a number of successful PKO missions and a greater commitment to humanitarian relief. This aspect of Japan’s foreign policy is in line with the concept of a UN-centered diplomacy, revived by Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki in 1990, and it could provide one way forward to a more proactive foreign policy in the twenty-first century. However, Japan’s participation in peacekeeping operations has not been without controversy both domestic and international, raising the sensitive issues of constitutional revision, the constitutionality of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and their overseas deployment, and Japan’s role in the UN and in the international arena.