[JURIST] Thousands of activists protested in Japan on Sunday in opposition to efforts to amend the country's pacifist constitution [text; JURIST news archive]. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, drafted during the American occupation of Japan after World War II, states:

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) In order 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.

[JURIST] The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities [official website; text] entered into force Saturday, one month after Ecuador became the 20th country to ratify the treaty [JURIST report]. The landmark UN disability rights treaty [JURIST news archive] protects the 650 million persons living with disabilities worldwide [UN fact sheet] and holds that all disabled people should be treated as full-fledged citizens and completely integrated into society. It has been signed by 127 countries and ratified by 25, albeit not the US [JURIST report], which insists that US domestic measures on the federal, state and local levels are already adequate for the purpose. The treaty opened for signature [JURIST report] last March.

The treaty also includes an Optional Protocol [Protocol text], which grants individuals the right to petition a committee of experts for violations of the Convention after all national procedures have been exhausted. The UN News Centre has more.