Ian Neary

Japan's human security agenda and its domestic human rights policies

This article examines whether and how new approaches to human rights in the 1990s finally demonstrate the implementation of the commitment made by the Japanese government in the post-war constitution and whether these changes constitute the application of a human security agenda. It illustrates, across a range of case studies from Korean residents to childrens rights, how different government and civil society activists have responded to international norms and influenced their domestic implementation. In conclusion, it compares the impact of these changes to an espoused commitment to human security since the 1990s.

Science and Technology Policy in Japan: The Pharmaceutical Industry and New Technology

Since the late nineteenth century Japan has operated government co-ordination of an industrial policy — ‘any policy targeted at improving industrial performance’ — and even a technology policy — ‘a set of policies involving government intervention with the intent of affecting the process of technological innovation’.1 Japan is no longer unusual in this respect, as many other states have either consciously put together bundles of policies with the intention of improving industrial performance or technological innovation, or else are custodians of systems where there are a number of separate policies whose combined effect amounts to much the same thing. Nevertheless it is Japan which is considered (or feared) to be most effective in creating plans for industrial and economic growth. However, it is becoming clear that there is even in Japan no single recipe for success and each industrial sector presents peculiar difficulties. Perhaps no industry is more peculiar or more reliant on government policy than the pharmaceutical industry. The prices of most of the drugs prescribed are fixed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW), it is the MHW which polices the industry to ensure that the strict regulations governing safety, efficacy and marketing are adhered to, and through its broader welfare policies it exercises strong influence over the entire medical environment.

Matsumoto Jiichirō and the making of democracy in postwar Japan

Abstract Matsumoto Jiichirō (1887–1966) is best known for his role as leader of the Buraku anti-discrimination movement in Japan. He was chairman and main sponsor of the pre-war Suiheisha and re-assumed a leading role when the movement re-emerged in the late 1940s, creating the Buraku Liberation League in 1955. In addition to this, he was a successful businessman whose construction company, the Matsumoto-gumi, built bridges and public buildings across Fukuoka. His reputation as a role model within the Buraku community cannot be overestimated. However, I do not intend to focus on these aspects of this life in this article. Rather I want to look at his contribution to the wider debate about democratizing postwar Japan.

The civil liberties commissioners system and the protection of human rights in Japan

Abstract The system of Civil Liberties Commissioners (Jinken Yōgo Iin — CLC) was created in the late 1940s and there are now over 13,000 of these volunteers operating in cities, towns and villages all over Japan. They are mainly retired men, mostly in their sixties or older although younger lawyers play an important role in the regional and national bodies into which the CLCs are organized. They give advice on human rights matters, they investigate the more serious incidents of human rights violations and they take part in campaigns to promote human rights ideas. There have been several proposals for reform of the CLC system but so far none have been implemented. While the present system does seem able to perform as a local‐level conciliation service acting as one part of the web which provides human rights protection in Japan, the CLCs have avoided activity critical of government policies. Moreover, they are not taken very seriously by many human rights activists in Japan. However, the recent appointment...

Biotechnology Policies and Innovation Support Infrastructure in the Context of Pharmaceuticals

The use of biological processes by man dates back thousands of years to the discovery of brewing, baking and cheesemaking. It was only in the last century that significant advances were made in the understanding of these and similar biological processes. The industrial applications of some of these developments were realised at the turn of the century, with the fermentative production of commodity chemicals, such as butanol and acetone, and the establishment of industries producing such substances as antibiotics, amino acids and enzymes in the postwar period. However, it is only since 1953, when the structure of DNA was discovered, and more especially since the early 1970s with the development of powerful new techniques – notably, recombinant DNA technology (genetic engineering) and hybridoma technology (leading to the production of monoclonal antibodies) – that biotechnology has attracted public interest and that its commercial potential has been fully appreciated. There is now little disagreement that biotechnology is one of the two or three most significant technologies in terms of commercial promise in the period up to the end of the century.

The Social and Political Context of the Pharmaceutical Industry in the UK and Japan

The market for pharmaceuticals is created through the interaction of the industry with the health care providers and government agencies. It is a product of the social and political forces within a society and will continue to develop in response to changing social demands and political controls. Our aim in this chapter is to take up two of our main themes in describing the characteristic sectoral features and the governance structures which operate in this sector. The next chapter will concentrate on the economic dimension of the industry’s development but here we will describe the social organisations and the political boundaries within which the pharmaceutical industry operates. Medicines are used mainly either within health institutions or on the instruction of health professionals, usually doctors. The market served by the pharmaceutical industry is thus the creation of the health care policy of any nation state. Our first concern therefore will be to describe the formation of the health care systems and how drugs are sold and distributed within those systems. Having described the key features of the market our discussion moves on to consider the governance structures operating here. We begin with an outline of the role played by the main government agencies, notably the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) and the Department of Health (DoH). However, in later chapters we shall assess how government makes use of the industrial associations created by the industry itself in the formation and implementation of policy. By way of background to this we will outline how the industry in each country seeks to govern itself and the general terms of its interaction with government. Regulation of the industry is instituted by the ministries but, in theory at least, they are subject to the control of the elected party politicians who are responsible to the electorate. In the final section we shall be asking how the actors described thus far relate to party politics.

The Economic and Technological Framework of Pharmaceuticals

The key economic and technological features of the pharmaceutical sector have been powerful factors shaping the governance and institutional system of the industry and indeed the strategies of individual firms within the industry. Outlining these key features will help to explain the way the industry has sought to shape and respond to governmental, institutional and technological pressures over the postwar period. The key elements of the economics and industrial framework of the sector will therefore he described in detail before the chapter concludes with an outline of the implications of the review for the analytical perspective set out in the rest of the book. We start, however, with a brief introduction and historical background to the industry in both countries.

Promotion, Prices and Profits

An unusual degree of control is exercised by governments on the pricing and profitability of the pharmaceutical industry in the two countries under consideration. In Japan drug prices are controlled; in the UK government stipulates permitted profit margins on domestic sales. There is no other industrial sector where the two governments play such a central role in this key area of industrial control and management. Both states are able to exercise a direct influence on the profitability of the industry as a whole and for this reason the conflict between the ministries’ dual role as industry promoters and custodians of the health service is most obvious. This chapter describes how the two ways of controlling prices have developed. Both have their origins in the 1950s and have evolved through the 1960s and 1970s alongside the growth of their respective health care systems. The 1980s, however, were a period of crisis in which the government-industry relationship came under great strain as government tried to curtail the rising cost of health care provision through policies designed to reduce the consumption and cost of medicine. In the 1990s the problems remain unresolved. Although an accommodation between the ministries and the drug manufacturers is in the process of emerging, government continues to seek further limitation on the cost of medicine in the health care system.

Science and Technology Policy in the UK and Japan

Although governments may now be less able to manipulate patent policy so that it works in favour of domestic industries, national governments still have a range of other policy instruments at their disposal with which to foster and promote science and technology (S&T) within the systems they control. In earlier chapters we have emphasised the crucial importance of research and development for the pharmaceutical industry. The total spent by the drug industry in each country is large but this is only one part of the picture and government funding for biomedical research can also be substantial. In the USA, for example, government allocated

The State and Politics in Japan

7.7 billion for such research in 1988, substantially more than the total of US private sector-funded pharmaceutical R&D. In fact Japan and the UK are two of only four developed market economies where company financed spending on biomedical R&D exceeds that funded by government.1 Nevertheless publicly funded research plays an important role in underwriting the scientific developments in both countries and is particularly significant for the pharmaceutical industry.