The Right to Collective Self-Defense and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Abstract

This paper examines Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s attempt to exercise the right to collective self-defense. In the past, the Japanese Government had interpreted that Japan would not be able to exercise the right to collective self-defense although she had such a right as a state and a member of the United Nations. It was because exercising such a right would go beyond the level of the necessary and minimum self-defense and therefore, would infringe on Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution. Abe challenged this interpretation and changed it in July 2014 so that Japan could exercise the right to collective self-defense. The paper would describe different positions on this right and conclude that Japan’s security would be in danger as a result of exercising the right to collective self-defense to help the United State.