U.N. Committee Faults Japan Human Rights Performance, Demands Progress Report on Key Issues

Abstract

How can Japan move toward gender equality, the elimination of authoritarian police practices and realization of the human rights enshrined in its laws and treaty obligations? Many Japanese human rights lawyers and activists believe that one important path forward lies through international institutions, especially those created under the auspices of the United Nations. This report describes the process that led to hearings before the UN Human Rights Committee held in Geneva on October 15-16, 2008. The powerful case presented by Japanese lawyers and activists succeeded in persuading the Committee to deliver stinging criticisms of Japan’s failures to take action to remedy several longstanding human rights problems.Composed of 34 numbered paragraphs of comments and recommendations, the Committee’s “Concluding Observations” cover a wide range of topics, including discriminatory treatment of women and non-Japanese persons, unrestricted interrogation of criminal suspects, poor treatment of prisoners, the lack of prosecution of perpetrators of crimes related to human trafficking, unreasonable restrictions of free speech, and disregard of the Committee’s longstanding recommendation that Japan establish an independent institution charged with protecting human rights. Two items in the Concluding Observations are of particular interest. One is the Committee’s demand that Japan “abolish” the practice of extended custody in local police jails commonly known as “daiyou kangoku.” This practice facilitates coerced confessions and has been heavily criticized by human rights campaigners and by the Committee itself for many years. The Committee also addressed the unwavering denial of human rights claims by Japan’s Supreme Court. The Court routinely invokes the abstract and open-ended term “public welfare” in order to justify arrests and restrictions on free speech and other individual rights. The Committee offered the very practical recommendation that Japan’s national parliament adopt a new statute to define “public welfare” and thereby impose some recognizable boundary on government restrictions of individual rights.