1In Support of Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is one of the oldest and most fundamental of criminal
punishments. It has been practiced in nearly every human civilisation, from ancient Egypt
where criminals were drowned in the Nile to modern day China where one is more likely to
be shot or injected with lethal substance. In the last century, however, capital punishment has
been abolished in many countries worldwide and it has been criticised as being inhumane.
Many global organisations, such as Amnesty International and the European Union, now callfor the global eradication of capital punishment, and support for this is spreading. More andmore countries are abolishing capital punishment globally and countries retaining capital
punishment have now become a minority. In contrast to this global trend, Japan is one of thefew economically advanced countries still firmly against abolishing capital punishment,
practicing it regularly alongside countries such as the United States, China and Saudi Arabia.
While international pressure from both governmental and non-governmental organisations
has increased for Japan to abolish its maximum punishment, public opinion remains strongly
against abolition. So which side should the government of Japan take? In this paper, I willcompare both sides of the argument, paying special attention to the legal nature of thesituation in Japan and who is entitled to make the decision whether to abolish capital
punishment or not.
In March 2012, Amnesty International, a Non-Governmental Organisation
campaigning for human rights, published a report detailing the current global situation
concerning capital punishment. In the report, only 58 countries are considered to be“Retentionist” and carry out death penalties while 140 countries are called “Abolitionist” andhave abolished capital punishment in law or in practice (“Death Sentences and Executions2011”). Amnesty International goes on to argue that only 21 countries out of the 198countries carried out executions, “a drop of more than a third in the last decade” (“The Death2Penalty in 2011”). This shows a strong trend worldwide against capital punishment and Japanis often singled out as one of the countries going firmly against this inclination.
At the same time, international organisations such as the European Union haverepeatedly called on Japan to abolish capital punishment. On 10 October 2012, in a message
issued on the World Day against the Death Penalty, ambassadors representing the EU, its 27
member states and Croatia issued a collective statement. In this statement, the ambassadors
requested Japan to “consider seriously an immediate moratorium on executions to allow acomprehensive public debate on this issue” noting that “the global trend is toward abolition,with more than two-thirds of the countries around the world either having formally abolishedcapital punishment or stopping its application”. They also added, “the EU considers the deathpenalty a violation of human dignity that does not deter violent crime” (“EU Calls for Japanto Abolish Capital Punishment”). This message is notable in that the EU has gone as far as tocriticise Japan directly for the first time on the topic of capital punishment, a move that could
be taken as interference with domestic matters and shows how much weight the EU places on
this problem.
Similarly, the United Nations has also repeatedly called for eradication of the death
penalty. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights banning capital punishment within the borders of member states was created in 1989
and has been ratified by 75 member states of the UN (“Second Optional Protocol”). In recentyears, Italy and Chile have proposed a global moratorium on the death penalty, supported bya number of Non-Governmental Organisations and other countries, culminating in aresolution passed by the General Assembly. Resolutions concerning this topic have been
passed in 2007, 2008 and 2010, with just 41 states going against the motion in 2010 (“UNresolution”). Despite both the UN and the EU applying political pressure, the Japanese
government strongly refuses to abolish capital punishment.

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From the above paragraphs, the strengthening international support for the abolitionof capital punishment is clear. However, it must be remembered that the issue of capital
punishment is a purely penal problem and can therefore be considered internal affairs ofJapan. As a sovereign country, no other country should be able to interfere with Japan’s
domestic affairs even if the life of a criminal is at stake. If international trends cannot change
the law in Japan, what can?
In an opinion poll conducted in 2009 and published in 2010 by the Cabinet Office,known as the Naikaku-fu in Japanese, popular support for capital punishment was reachedthe highest recorded level at 85.6% with just 5.7% supporting abolition. Yet, this was not aone-off. Since 1956 when the polls were first conducted, retentionists have always accounted
for more than 50% of those interviewed with voices calling for abolition never rising above
20%. In recent years support for capital punishment has risen, from 66.5% in 1990 to 85.6%
twenty years later (“Shikeiseido”). This is significant as it shows that support for capital
punishment has been consistent for more than 50 years, with no prospect of support forabolition increasing in the near future. Strong public opinion becomes problematic when it
comes to changing the status quo and abolishing capital punishment. This would mean
destroying a system that most citizens view as being adequate and replacing it with one thathas little to no support at all. This is something that would go against the democratic
principles that make up Japan and is not something that should be recommended.
Article 1 of the Japanese Constitution proclaims that “The Emperor shall be thesymbol of the State and of the unity of the People, deriving his position from the will of thepeople with whom resides sovereign power” (“The Constitution of Japan.”) making it clearthat Japan is indeed a democratic country. Japan is a parliamentary, representative democracy
where the citizens choose politicians to represent their constituency in the Diet. Therefore, itis evident that the Japanese people have the right to decide state policies. This is even more

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applicable on domestic matters such as capital punishment as compared to diplomatic
problems where the positions of other countries must be taken into account.
Even so, criticism of justifying capital punishment with the use of opinion polls
remains. The greatest of which is that common citizens do not have enough information orability to make a decision on this complex topic. One of the greatest example where thegeneral population were misled into making wrong political choices is in interwar Germany,
where effective Nazi propaganda caused the German populace to vote for Hitler and Nazism,
meaning Hitler was able to become leader of Germany legally and democratically. In
hindsight, if German citizens had been better informed of the Nazis’ true intentions, theywould not have been able to assume power as easily as they did in the early 1930s.
In spite of this, democracy, although it must be separated from demagogy, should still
dictate the way Japan progresses. The consistent and stable support for capital punishmentshows that it is not just a simple trend but also a strong belief in the system, rooted deeply inthe heart of many people who believe in equal retribution for crimes committed. Allowing
this decision to be made by any other group rather than the entire Japanese population also
creates further problems. Refusing to listen to the majority believing the minority to be rightcontains the risk of moving towards an oligarchy where the intellectual and economical elite
decide the policy of the state. History points out to us that oligarchy hardly ever succeeds,
with the sole exception of the ancient Roman Senate that was eventually weakened by
Roman Emperors. This is not a route that Japan should take.
In the end, the problem of capital punishment settles down to a simple question: whodecides what is right and what is wrong. In the current circumstances, where there is noomniscient human being that can decide for citizens of this country what is right and what iswrong, it remains up to each individual to make this choice consciously and with care.
Therefore, the people of this country must decide what is right and what is wrong. All

5Japanese nationals have the right and indeed the duty to decide the course that this nation
takes. If the decision reached by the people of Japan after careful deliberation is that capital
punishment should not be abolished in this country, then that is what is right. There is nohigher authority that is qualified to make this decision, even if the choices the people maketoday may be wrong, when viewed in hindsight. This is democracy. It may have some flaws
but no system is flawless, a notion perfectly summarised by Winston Churchill who once
famously said, “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government,
except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” (“DEMOCRACY”).

6Works Cited“The Constitution of Japan.” Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet. Prime Ministerof Japan and His Cabinet, n.d. Web. 5 November 2012.
<http://kantei.go.jp/foreign/constitution_and_government_of_japan/constitution/constitution_e.html>“The Death Penalty in 2011.” Amnesty International. Amnesty International, n.d.
Web. 17 October 2012. <http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/death-sentences-andexecutions-in-2011>“Death Sentences and Executions 2011.” Amnesty International Publications.
Amnesty International, March 2012. PDF file.
<http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ACT50/001/2012/en/241a8301-05b4-41c0-bfd92fe72899cda4/act500012012en.pdf>“European Ambassadors join forces to call for abolition of the death penalty.”
Delegation of the European Union to Japan. Delegation of the European Union to Japan, 9October 2012. Web. 5 November 2012.
<http://www.euinjapan.jp/en/media/news/news2012/20121009/175034/print/> (Clicking on
the link will redirect to Japanese website. Please copy and paste the URL.)“DEMOCRACY: Democracy and Churchill.” WAIS Forum on Democracy. World
Association on International Studies, 3 May 2009. Web. 6 November 2012.
<http://wais.stanford.edu/Democracy/democracy_DemocracyAndChurchill(090503).html>“Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.” United Nations Treaty Collection. United
Nations, n.d. Web. 4 November 2012.
<http://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV12&chapter=4&lang=en>

7“Shikeiseido ni Kansuru Naikakufu (Sourifu) Yoronchousa no Kekka.” Ministry ofJustice. Ministry of Justice, n.d. PDF File. <http://www.moj.go.jp/content/000053168.pdf>“UN resolution: the abolitionist front grows stronger again.” World Coalition. World
Coalition, 22 December 2010. Web. 4 November 2012. <http://www.worldcoalition.org/UNresolution-the-abolitionist-front-grows-stronger-again.html>