Japan’s Decision-Making Process regarding the United Nations Protection Force: The Review Process under the Hosokawa-led Non-LDP Coalition Government

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  • 国連保護軍（UNPROFOR）と日本―非自民連立政権下における検討過程
  • コクレン ホゴグン(UNPROFOR)ト ニホン : ヒジミン レンリツ セイケン カ ニ オケル ケントウ カテイ

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Abstract

The non-LDP coalition government led by Morihiro Hosokawa was formed in August 1993. The period of the Hosokawa Administration, which consisted of seven parties and one faction, is known as an era of political reform in Japanese society. However, this does not mean that the Government of Japan did not take any steps to participate in Peace Keeping Operations (PKO). Indeed, though it received less public attention, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA) and others were working on the issue of participation in the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the former Yugoslavia, one of the issues that this paper deals with. So how was participation in UNPROFOR considered within the Government of Japan at the time? First, this paper examines how the situation in the former Yugoslavia was perceived in the Asian and European Bureau of MOFA during the non-LDP coalition. Second, the process by which the Japanese government, including the MOFA, considered the UN’s request to dispatch a mission to UNPROFOR in Croatia. Accordingly, the paper examines why the Government of Japan turned down the request, interweaving some of the arguments surrounding the International Peace Cooperation Law. Finally, it focuses on the debate over preventive deployment in Macedonia, which emerged around the time of Yasushi Akashi’s appointment as Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), and elucidates the process by which the initiative of the Foreign Policy Bureau of MOFA was crushed. The aforementioned points reveal that the Government of Japan faced differences of opinion regarding participation in UNPROFOR, and the moment for discussion regarding PKO in Macedonia passed from the domestic political space due to the subsequent political realignment.

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