ABSTRACT
It is now half a century since the end of the Pacific War and Japan's adoption of a new constitution in 1946. Throughout that fifty-year period the constitution has been the center of controversy in Japan's postwar political system. To be sure, the controversy over the constitution goes well beyond the "postwar system" to broader and deeper principles that constitute the pillars of Japan's postwar democracy. It was probably through Mark Gayn's book, Japan Diary, which was published in Japan at the end of the American occupation in 1951, that the Japanese people first learned the truth about the constitution being "imposed" on Japan during the drafting process. Throughout Japan's past "law" was the monopoly of government officials and legal specialists. In that sense the Japanese Constitution opened up new horizons, if even in a modest way. In a fundamental sense, the Japanese Constitution rests on principles of internationalism.
