Pacific Affairs: An International Review of Asia and the Pacific

Volume 74, No. 3

 

E.H. Norman, Canada and Japan's Postwar Constitution
By John Price

 

Abstract

E.H. Norman, a historian and Canadian diplomat posted to Japan during most of the Occupation, was intimately involved with the crafting of Japan's postwar constitution. His views on the constitution and the monarchy first developed as part of his responsibilities as an analyst with Canadian intelligence during the war. They further evolved after he was seconded to MacArthur's staff in the fall of 1945 and during his subsequent tenure as Canada's main representative to the Far Eastern Commission. There he played a leading role in the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee. This article examines Norman's views on the constitution and the Emperor as they evolved in the 1943-1950 period. It suggests that Norman's views on the constitutional process differed radically from those of General MacArthur but that in the end, the Canadian government declined to challenge U.S. hegemony over Occupation policy. Thus Norman no longer pursued the agenda he had laid out and instead accepted the reformed monarchy and the constitution as the lesser of evils. The origins of Japan's postwar constitution have come under scrutiny as constitutional research commissions in both the upper and lower houses of Japan's Diet investigate the postwar constitution with an eye to revising it within the next five years.