2015, Vol., No.17

JAPAN SPACE 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.29

pISSN : 1976-1481
https://journal.kci.go.kr/japanspace

This study analyzes the existing Japanese legislations about foreigners and proposes couple of improvements to these. The existing Japanese legislations about foreigners is not necessarily satisfactory level from the score of the Migration Integration Policy Index, this study argues that one of main causes originates from the history and the character of Japan as an ethnic nation. Next we divide 4 periods of the history of Japanese foreigner policy, that is, 1st period (1945-1979) as rampant of exclusion and discrimination and forced assimilation, 2nd period (1980-1989) as laid with some solid foundation to equality and internationalization, 3rd period (1990-2005) as one step to multicultural symbiotic society and finally 4th period (2005~) as impasse to further step to multicultural symbiotic society. In 3rd chapter, we examine the existing Japanese legislations about foreigners from the viewpoint of limitation to enjoyment of rights. These include immigration law, two main political rights (suffrage and engage in public service), freedom of choice of occupation, finally, right to education. In conclusion, we propose couple of improvements to the existing Japanese legislations of foreigners including the partial introduction of jus soli and/or jus domicile and recognition of a category of ‘non-Japanese’ Japanese nationals.

Issues concerning human rights of Korean residents in Japan are usually dealt with in the framework of “human rights of aliens” in Japanese constitutional law. However, given the historical background that the Koreans from the ex-colony of Japan came to settle in this country, as well as the fact that they were unilaterally deprived of their Japanese nationality after the war, treating those Koreans and their descendants simply as “foreigners” raises grave concern in terms of their legal status. In addition, Japan is now a State party to a number of human rights treaties, by which it is obligated to ensure rights to all individuals within its jurisdiction regardless of nationality. This article critically analyzes the situation of human rights of Korean residents in Japan in light of international human rights law. It also emphasizes that discrimination against Koreans including hate speech has much to do with the lack of history education, and that human rights treaties provide useful insight on this point as well.

Korea's economy has long relied on the Japanese economy to achieve industrialization. This is because 1) Korea and Japan are close to one another culturally and geographically, and while some believe the second reason is because of the normalization funding exchanged between the two countries as recompense for the Japanese invasion of Korea, the real reason is that 2) Japan offers goods and services rather than money. In addition, imports from Japan played a much larger role in South Korea’s economy than those of any other country. In addition, Korea’s reliance on Japan has decreased little by little to the point that on the contrary, Korea is becoming a confirmed competitor of Japan and its economy. This growth is particularly noticeable in the electrical machinery industry, and there is also much growth in the transportation machinery industry. From this background, we see Korea’s economy growing as a result of a relatively short period of industrialization, its new IT industry, modularity, its performance in emerging markets, the spillover of talent from Japanese companies, Six Sigma, the high yen, and so on. Finally, like the competition between American and Japanese companies, the Korea-Japan economic competition aims for the emergence of more daring companies that are scrap-and-build.