육면체로서의 일본국 헌법 제9조 ― 헌법 평화주의와 세계 질서의 80년 ―

Article 9, the peace provision of the 1946 Japanese Constitution, tends to be understood as a provision of pacifism. But it has many meanings and functions. It is essential to grasp this multifaceted article in the context of international politics in the past eighty-plus years. This paper argues that only when we see Article 9 from six different angles such as from Washington DC, from the Japanese Empire, from the Japanese people, from Okinawa, from East Asia, and from the peoples of the world we fully understand what Article 9 has been. We can see six faces of Article 9. Article 9 has done the following: 1) disarming the Japanese military forces, 2) dismantling the Japanese Empire as a result of defeat (virtual decolonization), 3) liberating the Japanese people from the military regime, 4) imposing military roles on Okinawa, 5) liberating East Asian people from Japanese imperialism (in that sense Article 9 contains a nature of punishment), and 6) necessitating a new world order that replaces the current sovereign state system because the essence of Article 9 is the denial of the military sovereignty of Japan and Japan needs a world order which is based on mutual dependence and reliance among states. And this direction is shared by global civil society organizations. With Article 9 the hegemonic United States incorporated the defeated Japanese Empire as a subcontract empire into Pax Americana. At first demilitarization of Japan was the policy but with deepening of the Cold War the United States changed its policy to rearmament of Japan. In 1952 Japan returned to the international society as a member of the Western alliance with the US-Japan security treaty. From then on Article 9 and the US-Japan security treaty have been mutually contradicting principles of peace and security to this day. The contradictions between Article 9 and the US-Japan security treaty regime have grown and with the recent change of East Asian international relations the contradictions have become greater. Particularly Okinawa bears the burden of the US-Japan alliance. Now it looks like the US-Japan alliance overwhelms the peace principle of Article 9 but it remains to have normative powers. We need to endure contradictions and work with global civil society organizations to prepare a next world order.