SNA (Tokyo) — The signature function of the United Nations is to promote world peace, and one way to do that is to encourage ethical standards of behavior from its member countries. They get people to agree on those norms and standards through signing international treaties.

One of the standards that matters most is human rights practices. After all, countries that want to belong to the respected club of “civilized” countries are expected to sign the treaties covering a whole host of noble issues: the elimination of torture; the protection of women, children, and people with disabilities; and the protections of people in general in terms of economic, political, social, civil, and political rights. Signatories are expected to submit periodical reports (usually about every two years) to UN committees to demonstrate how they are progressing.

Japan has signed most of those treaties.

My favorite one, of course, is the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which protects people, especially our Visible Minorities, against discrimination by “race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin.”

But getting Japan to actually abide by CERD is one of the hobby horses I’ve been riding for decades.

When Japan signed the CERD in 1995, it explicitly agreed to “prohibit and bring to an end, by all appropriate means, including legislation as required by circumstances, racial discrimination,” and they were to do it “without delay.”

Yet more than a quarter century later, Japan still has no national law against racial discrimination.

With compounded irony, the Constitution of Japan has a provision (Article 14) that expressly forbids discrimination by race. This means that the clear signs of racial discrimination (e.g., the “Japanese Only” signs and rules that refuse “foreigners” on sight) are unconstitutional yet not illegal.

So when called upon to justify its record of nasty treatment of its foreign, ethnic, historical, and visible minorities, how does Japan get away with it? By delaying, of course.

Let’s take a look at the last time Japan submitted its periodic report on the implementation of CERD, and reveal its pattern of reporting in bad faith.

In 2017, Japan submitted its report late (combining two reports into one), claiming (as it did verbatim in its extremely late 2008 and 2013 reports) that Japan has taken “every conceivable measure to fight against racial discrimination.”

Of course, this means that Japan considers actually passing a law against discrimination to be inconceivable.

Japan’s report oddly cited Article 14 of the Constitution (which cannot be enforced because, again, there’s no criminal or civil law to enforce it) as evidence of its efforts; then rattled off some odd measures already on the books that apparently protect against discrimination (assuming, of course, the government or the judiciary chooses to enforce them that way).

In that vein, Japan even brought up its new hate speech law, then caveated its way out of enforcing it: “to control all such practices with criminal laws and regulations beyond the current legal system [i.e., criminalizing it so the police, not a lengthy courtroom proceeding, can also enforce it] is likely to be contrary to the freedom of expression and other freedoms as guaranteed by the Constitution.”

But the flim flam really began when Japan got to the section on “foreign nationals registered in Japan” (not, of course, “foreign residents.” Nowhere in the report is the word “immigrant” ever used).

Japan boldly stated, for example, that the abusive and deadly Technical Intern Training Program—the one that keeps Japan’s industries humming with cheap foreign workers, toiling in virtual slavery due to being exempt from labor law protections—does not fall under CERD!

Then Japan talked about what they called “illegal foreign workers” and their “criminal acts.” After briefly acknowledging them as victims of exploitation, forced labor, and human trafficking, the only concrete relief offered these “illegals” was deportation (under what they benevolently called “repatriation assistance”)—no stats on how many Japanese employers were punished for bringing them here and subjecting them to abusive conditions in the first place.

Then come the outright lies. For example, after acknowledging that Japan won’t sign the Convention against Discrimination in Education, the government stated that Japan’s Basic Act on Education “provides for equal opportunity” for foreign children. Except that it doesn’t: The Act explicitly states that it applies only to kokumin (Japanese nationals). And, as I have written before, it has created an uneducated underclass of hundreds of thousands of Non-Japanese children denied an elementary education in Japan.

How about the treatment of foreigners in Immigration’s deadly detention facilities? All the government says is, “Police personnel who are engaged in crime investigations, detainment management, and assistance for victims are thoroughly educated to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to ensure appropriate execution of duties that takes into consideration the human rights of suspects, detainees, crime victims, and others.”

The family of the late Wishma Sandamali might have something to say about that.

Also omitted was any mention of the “Japanese Only” establishments. The report simply repeated the same excuses as before, where laws regarding hygiene and sanitation incidentally “safeguard the benefit of users” and “ensure proper responses to complaints from consumers.”

The government even claims the Hotel Business Act “prohibits hotels from refusing a customer merely on the basis of race or ethnicity.” Except, of course, when hotels unlawfully demand Gaijin Cards from Non-Japanese residents for inspection and photocopying, then deny refusers service.

There’s plenty more in the report that elicits guffaws from anyone who knows better (you should see how they excuse the government’s execrable treatment of refugees, even after admitting that Japan only accepted 1.7% of applicants in 2015).

Fortunately, the United Nations does. In its response dated September 2018, the UN noted, “The Committee regrets that, despite its previous recommendations, the definition of racial discrimination in the Constitution is still not in line with article 1 of the Convention, and that there is still no comprehensive legislation prohibiting racial discrimination.”

The UN also noted how no progress had been made in terms of establishing a national human rights institution, and pointed out how Japan has no laws “criminalizing trafficking in persons, and that the number of arrests and convictions is low.” It then added that xenophobic speech is “not consistently investigated and prosecuted, and public officials and private individuals remain unaccountable for racist hate speech and hate crimes.” It even corrected Japan’s own statistics on refugee applicant acceptance rates (0.17%).

My favorite section was this:

33. The CERD Committee is concerned that:

(a) Non-citizens have reportedly been denied housing and employment because they are foreign nationals;

(b) Foreign nationals and individuals with a foreign appearance have reportedly been denied entry to and services of certain privately owned facilities like hotels and restaurants that otherwise serve the public, including through the posting of signage reading “Japanese only”;

(c) Non-citizens, in particular Koreans, continue to be excluded from the national pension scheme because of the age requirement;

(d) The State party has not yet amended its legislation to allow non-citizens to be eligible for basic disability pensions;

(e) Non-citizens and long-term foreign residents and their descendants remain excluded from public positions that engage in the exercise of public authority or public decision-making because they do not have Japanese nationality.

In response, Japan wanly pointed out things like how the Justice Ministry’s potemkin Human Rights Bureau raises public awareness and offers “counseling” (without any binding punitive powers); that Japan’s investigations of “Trainee” abuses resulted in a whopping nine (!) employer licenses revoked in 2018; and that victims are being protected by “publicity and awareness-raising activities, including by operating the anonymous report hotline and by distributing leaflets in multiple languages.”

It again skipped any acknowledgement of those pesky “Japanese Only” signs.

As for refugees, Japan even invoked Trumpist rhetoric by saying, “Situations surrounding Japan on refugees differ from those of European countries, where inflow of refugees and displaced persons is considered as a significant international problem… Detainees in immigration detention facilities are treated in a manner respecting their lifestyle along with the customs of their respective countries to the extent that doing so does not pose a security risk.”

What’s Japan’s government up to? It’s playing word games with the UN. You can see it way back in its 2000 report where it said the quiet part out loud.

As the UN has grumbled after every periodic report, Japan’s definition of “racial discrimination” is at odds with the CERD. Japan defines “race” in terms of century-old definitions of people “sharing biological characteristics” (i.e. not in terms of modern definitions seeing “race” as a social construct, codified through politicized public policies).

Japan’s defense is this: All people in Japan who are citizens are members of the “Japanese race,” therefore discrimination against them cannot be “racial” (thereby denying the very existence of Visible Minorities in Japan). On the other hand, all people who are not citizens automatically do not have the same rights as citizens because they are not citizens; ergo discrimination towards them does not fall under CERD.

Essentially, Japan interprets CERD so that it doesn’t cover anyone in Japan.

All this parrying back and forth between polite diplomats is the way Japan retains its international cachet as a rich, developed country—while remaining the only rich, developed country without any national law against racial discrimination.

Japan’s next combined late reports are due by January 2023. I look forward to seeing how Japan weasels its way out of its treaty promises next time. It will probably be the same way as last time… and the time before that. This dance has been going on for decades: After all, it’s taking “every conceivable measure to fight against racial discrimination,” right?

Without more attention drawn to Japan’s purposeful intent to ignore the international treaties that it signs, progress and protections for Japan’s minorities will indeed remain… inconceivable.

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