North Korea

Japan’s Definition of Armed Attack and ‘Bloody Nose’ Strikes Against North Korea

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(published in Just Security, Feb. 1, 2018)

Shinzo?_Abe_and_Donald_Trump_in_Palm_Beach_(2)There has been an important discussion in the last couple of weeks over the legality of possible limited strikes, part of a so-called “bloody nose” strategy, by the United States against North Korea. The main issue of that debate has been quite conclusively determined: such a strike would not be legal. And as Victor Cha, the White House’s pick, until recently, to be ambassador to South Korea, laid out in an op-ed this week, it would be deeply misguided as a policy choice. There remains more to be said, however, about a couple of interesting and potentially important questions regarding Japan’s position in relation to such strikes. One, which has been raised but not fully answered in the discussion, relates to whether Japan has already somehow consented in advance to U.S. action in collective self-defense of Japan. The second, which has not been explicitly addressed at all, is whether Japan defines “armed attack” for purposes of triggering the right of self-defense differently than does the U.S.

To recap briefly, the debate was set off by an essay in Lawfare by two West Point professors, Army Lt. Col. Shane Reeves and Army Capt. Robert Lawless, arguing that limited strikes on North Korea would be lawful. Virtually all elements of their argument were quite persuasively demolished by Kevin Jon Heller in Opinio Juris, and Michael Schmitt and Ryan Goodman here in Just Security.

A central premise of one strand of the Reeves/Lawless argument was that the test-firing of a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the territory of Japan could constitute an armed attack, triggering an American right to use force as an exercise of collective self-defense. They were dismissive of the position of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that collective self-defense requires a request from and consent of the country under attack, suggesting that the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the U.S. and Japan (the “U.S.-Japan Security Treaty”), “may provide a basis” for American action. They went on to note that, in their view, Japan was in any event very unlikely to oppose American strikes in defense of Japan.

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The Legal Issues of Firing on North Korea’s “Rocket”

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(Initially published in JapanInc.com, April 3, 2009)

As tensions mount and there is increasing talk of shooting down the “debris” from a pending North Korean rocket launch, there has been little discussion of what would happen if Japan shot down the rocket instead. While there is great public support for action, there should be some pause to consider the constitutional and legal issues of Japan’s military deployment in these circumstances.

North Korea continues to prepare for the launch of a an experimental satellite delivery system, widely suspected of being a Taepodong 2 long-range ballistic missile, scheduled for some time between April 4-8. While North Korea touts the launch as an attempt to put a satellite in orbit, many view it as a missile test in violation of a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution. North Korea has provided notice of the flight path, which will take the missile over Japan and into the middle of the Pacific.

It was announced on March 28, that Japan’s Minister of Defense had issued orders to the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to deploy Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) assets (the land-based Patriot Missile batteries or PAC-3, and the maritime Aegis Cruiser based SM-3 systems) to shoot down “any part of a North Korean rocket that might fall toward Japanese territory” (link). The order, authorized by the prime minister, is said to be based on Article 82 of the SDF Law.

The provision provides the authority to order the SDF to take measures to destroy missiles or other falling objects (other than aircraft), which are suspected to be heading for Japanese territory and which could cause serious harm to persons or property (link). Others have written about the considerable technical difficulty that the SDF might encounter in trying to intercept actual debris from the first stage of the rocket, which is supposed to separate and fall to earth prior to the rocket passing over Japanese territory (link).

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