Article 9 Society

73 Honorable Words for World Peace

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution:

"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

Founding, Goals and Objectives of the Article 9 Society

Few people realize that for three-quarters-of-a-century, since the end of World War II, primarily because of just these 73 words in Japan's Constitution, no person outside of Japan has been killed by Japanese soldiers.

Learning from the disasterous experiences of two world wars, the victors and the vanquished created new principles for international peace and justice, and gave them a home in Japan's Constitution. These principles were embodied in Article 9 in 1946.

Those of us in The Article 9 Society believe that the principles of Article 9 can be effective in deterring war, and that Article 9 might well be a new model for all nations for the 21st Century and beyond.

The Article 9 Society (A9S) was founded in mid-March 1991 after the Gulf "oil-resource" War, and out of a renewed recognition of the futility, folly, foolishness, and immorality of war as an instrument of foreign policy, and as a vehicle for attempting to solve international problems. The name, "The Article 9 Society" was taken from Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution which was written with the help of the United States after World War Two.

The long term goal of the Article 9 Society is to have all nations on earth adopt in their own constitutions the principles expressed in Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.

Recognizing the difficulty in weaning ourselves from the age old addiction for war, The Article 9 Society's shorter term goals leading to the long term, are:

to encourage and support the Japanese people in their desire to retain Article 9 of their Constitution, in the face of increasing international and internal pressure to abandon it.
To encourage and support the German people in their desire to retain their post WW-II constitutional prohibitions against the use of military force in dispute resolution.
To encourage and support the idea that Japanese and German Constitutional prohibitions against the use of military force should be viewed as positive and desirable models for the 21st centurary and beyond -- models for non-violent international conflict resolution and war prevention, to be emulated by other nations.
To encourage and support, also as models for the future, exploration of the constitutions and practices of nations such as Costa Rica, Switzerland, and others who have successfully survived without the use of military force as an instrument of government policy.
To encourage and support efforts by all nations and the United Nations to begin to seriously allocate resources for education in and implementation of the endless possibilities for war prevention and non-violent means of conflict resolution.