ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War has raised questions both within and outside Japan as to the future role it will play in international society. In the fields of Japanese foreign, security and defence policies, one of the most salient changes which took place during the 1990s is the now legally permissible despatch abroad of the Japan SelfDefence Force ( JSDF or, more commonly, SDF) in a non-combat role under the aegis of the United Nations (UN) as part of its peacekeeping operations (PKOs or UNPKOs). Due to legislation enacted in the wake of the Second Gulf War of 1991, Japan was able to contribute personnel for the first time to the UN Angola Verification Mission II (UNAVEM II) and the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) mission in September 1992, and subsequently to missions in Mozambique (Opération des Nations Uniés au Mozambique: ONUMOZ (UN Operation in Mozambique)), El Salvador (Observadores de las Nacionas Unidas en El Salvador: ONUSAL (UN Observer Mission in El Salvador)), Rwanda (UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda: UNAMIR), the Golan Heights (UN Disengagement Observer Force: UNDOF) and East Timor (UN Assistance Mission in East Timor: UNAMET).1 After ten years of minimal contributions of civilian personnel to PKOs in the 1980s and nearly half a century of emphasis on purely economic contributions to the maintenance of the international system, this change is all the more remarkable. Equally salient is the dramatic change in the attitude of the Japanese public towards the existence and overseas despatch of the SDF. There are a number of reasons for this state of affairs, both internal and external, and it is the purpose of this book to investigate the various reasons for these changes with particular emphasis being placed on the role that the UN has played in promoting, constraining and justifying Japan’s watershed decision to expand its participation in PKOs. The kinds of questions that motivated the writing of this book include: what factors have influenced, encouraged and hindered Japan’s sudden activity in PKOs? How has Japan regarded the UN system and its peacekeeping functions? What kind of role has the UN specifically played in legitimising the despatch of SDF personnel? What kind of role can Japan play within PKOs?
