ABSTRACT
UNDER THE CONSTITUTION, the Imperial Diet has no direct means of control over the conduct of foreign relations. It possesses no constitutional power in the declaration of war, making of peace, conclusion of treaties, recognition of new states or governments, or in the appointment of diplomatic and consular officers. With the gradual development of parliamentary system, however, the Diet has tended to exert an increasing influence, though indirect and often ineffective, over foreign policies as well as over domestic affairs, through legislation, fiscal control, parliamentary interpellations and debates, and other means at its disposal. Thus, the rapidly increasing supervisory and directive power of the Diet over the executive through the established principle of parliamentary responsibility of the ministry has extended more and more to the conduct of foreign relations, though admittedly to a less degree than in domestic affairs. An attempt is made in this chapter briefly to sketch the structure and formal powers of the legislative branch of government to ascertain the actual influence and control it may exert over the executive in foreign as well as domestic policies.
