Three constitutions against war: Japan, Italy, Germany

Volume 14 of the Open Access series Global Perspectives on Legal History has been published

October 13, 2020

After the Second World War concluded, the three defeated ‘Axis powers’ – Japan, Italy and Germany – were obligated to insert provisions prohibiting wars of aggression into their post-war constitutions, which are still in force today. Mario Losano’s present study provides an overview of both the origin and development of these pacifist articles, thus enabling a better understanding of the current debates regarding the impending constitutional revisions.

The Italian-language volume, which has just been published in our Open Access book series Global Perspectives on Legal History, first deals with the period between the end of the war and the establishment of peace, and then shifts its focus to the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, denazification and reparations. In the years that followed, and against the background of the Cold War, the membership of these three states in international bodies led not only to their military armament but also to their participation in armed conflicts. Mario Losano approaches these developments in comparative terms and elucidates how the continued existence of the pacifist articles in the respective constitutions was, as a result of these developments, increasingly called into question. The volume closes with an extensive appendix with selected documents on essential aspects of the constitutional paths taken by the three countries.

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