Global Constitutionalism for East Asia: Its Potential to Promote Constitutional Principles

In the book’s concluding chapter 18, Takao Suami tackles the question whether Global Constitutionalism might be useful in promoting certain principles specifically in East Asia. He asserts that given its universal character, Global Constitutionalism has not yet been discussed from the perspective of any particular region. The lack of regional approaches represents a gap in legal scholarship. The level of constitutionalisation differs in each region. Accordingly, the impact of Global Constitutionalism, which covers domestic and international law, differs from region to region. Against this background, his chapter details how and to what extent Global Constitutionalism is significant for East Asia. After a summary of the situation of East Asia overall, the second section focuses on the discussion in wartime Japan on ‘Overcoming Modernity’. This discussion demonstrates a serious analytic and normative flaw of the postulate of ‘Asian values’. Based on insights from the second section, the last section studies the situation of the constitution of Japan. It concludes that Global Constitutionalism may have a positive impact on the constitutional protection for individuals. As a whole, Suami’s chapter asserts that the traditional West-East dichotomy is theoretically meaningless in analysing ongoing problems in international society.