ABSTRACT
Global society has created a series of benchmarks for modern democracies represented by relevant covenants of the United Nations (UN)] and acquis communautaire that states must conform to before they can be admitted into the European Union (EU). At bi-Iaterallevel, the European Commission has been promoting the abolition of capital punishment in Japan for many years, which it raises occasionally in bi-Iateral summits; and the Council of Europe has also been pressuring Japan over its observer status.2 Japan has not met the requirements declared in the Statutory Resolution (93) that those who are granted observer status should be 'willing to accept principles of democracy, the rule of law and of the enjoyment by all persons within its jurisdiction of human rights and fundamental freedoms' (Council of Europe 1993: 1). Therefore, in 2001, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) warned both Japan and the United States of America that observer status would be threatened ifno significant progress in the implementation ofthe resolution was made by 1 January 2003 (Council of Europe 2001:3). The Japanese government did not respond to this. Instead, a former Minister of Justice, Moriyama Mayumi, justified the retention of capital punishment on cultural grounds at a seminar entitled' Judiciary and Human Rights in Countries that Hold Observer Status with the Council of Europe' held on 28 to 29 May 2002. She claimed that wide public support3 for capital punishment stems from a specific Japanese view on guilt
Mika Obara holds a PhD in Politics from Loughborough University. Her thesis is titled 'Capital Punishment in Japan: Case Study of the De Facto Moratorium Period from 1989 to 1993'. She is currently a Research Associate at the Institute of Asian Cultural Studies at the International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan.
