[JURIST] The House of Councillors [official website], Japan’s upper house of parliament, on Saturday approved a measure that allows Japan’s Self Defense Forces to deploy troops abroad for the first time since World War II. The legislation passed the lower house [Al Jazeera report] of Japan in July. The law was backed by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s [BBC profile] ruling coalition. The measure faced substantial opposition within Japan and protestors [NPR report] gathered outside the parliament on Friday. Opponents of the bill are upset that the law contradicts pacifist provisions [BBC profile] in the constitution of Japan [text], specifically Article 9, which states: “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.” Abe argues [NYT report] that the national military must take a more active role in order to strengthen its position against growing military power in China and a nuclear-armed North Korea. The government put limits on military deployments in the new law, but critics argue those limitations are extremely vague.

In an op-ed earlier this month, JURIST guest columnist Craig Martin, an Associate Professor at the Washburn University School of Law, discussed how the Japanese government’s interpretation of the national constitutional limits on the use of military force will affect the US foreign policies [JURIST op-ed].