Civil and Political Rights in Japan

Saul J. Takahashi is a human rights lawyer currently located in Tokyo, where he is the Japan Representative for the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and teaches human rights related courses at several universities. He is also doing research on the rights of Muslims in Japan as a doctoral candidate at Waseda University. From April 2019, he will be employed as Professor of Human Rights and Peace Studies at Osaka Jogakuin University. Takahashi has worked at Amnesty International in Tokyo and in London and for international organisations in Geneva and Vienna, and from 2009 to 2014 was Deputy Head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. He holds an LLM in international human rights law from the University of Essex and is the author of several books, including Human Rights and Drug Control: the False Dichotomy, Human Rights, Human Security, and State Security: the Intersection (ed.), and Paresuchina-jin ha kurushimi tudukeru: naze kokuren ha kaiketsu dekinai no ka [The Palestinian People Continue to Suffer: Why the UN Can't Solve the Problem].

The human rights issues in Japan are multifaceted. Over decades, domestic and international human rights organisations have raised concerns, but government obstinacy has meant there has been little progress.

1: Contributors; 2: Introduction; 3: Introductory Comments; 4: Chapter 1 - Hate speech and the false human rights narrative in Japan; 5: Chapter 2 - Media in Japan: the Muzzled Watchdog; 6: Chapter 3 - Criminal Justice Reform of 2016: A Solution to the Infamous Problems in Japanese Criminal Procedure?; 7: Chapter 4 - An Examination of the Force Used by Kidoutai (riot police) and Japan Coast Guard; 8: Chapter 5 - Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality in Japan; 9: Chapter 6 - Discrimination against Women in the Sphere of Marriage and Family Life; 10: Chapter 7 - D¿wa Project Policies as unfinished human rights business - from D¿taishin to Ikengushin; 11: Chapter 8 - Blanket Police Surveillance of Muslims: a Chilling Precedent; 12: Chapter 9 - The Fukushima Diaspora: Assessing the State-Based Non-Judicial Remedies; 13: Chapter 10 - Stratification of Rights and Entitlements among Refugees and Other Displaced Persons in Japan; 14: Chapter 11 - Japan's military sexual slavery: Seeking reparations as on-going human rights violations; 15: Chapter 12 - Japan and the international human rights procedures: the 'han-nichi' narrative; 16: Index