Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution

The article

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
(2) To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is a clause outlawing war as a means to settle international disputes involving the state.

There are several versions of how this pacifist article came to be put into the constitution, but in short, it was adopted after WW2 and it turned the Japanese constitution into the first pacifist constitution in the world.

It unequivocally renounces war as a solution to disagreement and states that "The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

It is therefore extremely worrying to see the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visit the Yasukuni Shrine at the same time as he talks about constitutional reform, especially since the USA has put huge pressure on successive Japanese PMs to remove the article in order to make Japan be on-side with them in their paranoia against China.

So please support organizations like Global Article9 Campaign to try to stop the removal of Article 9 in Japan and to campaign to have a similar pacifist amendment added to your own constitutions.