2025/08/25 by Schlichtmann, Klaus
#Bismarck #Enlightenment #Franco-Prussian War #Fukuzawa Yukichi #German militarism #Hague Peace Conferences #Iwakura-Mission #Japan #Japan’s 1947 Peace Constitution #Meiji Constitution #Meiji Restoration #Nakae Chomin #imperialism #military establishment #national development #opening Japan to the world #peace #rule of law #state formation #world government #world parliament
paper · doi:10.11588/asien.2024.170/171.28383
This study examines the international relations between Japan and the West, particularly with regards to the development of international and constitutional law, peace and statehood. During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, international relations had intensified and reached a peak in the 18th century. The idea of a peaceful organisation of the world as a political union evolved with the Enlightenment, which thus laid the philosophical foundation for concepts such as international law, human rights and international cooperation. With the Hague Peace Conferences 1899 and 1907, an international legal community was constituted for the first time in the 20th century, the forerunner of the League of Nations and the United Nations. In this context, Japan was ideally destined to play a leading role. Japan wanted to give itself a new constitution and become a liberal democracy.