The Constitution, international law and the rights of foreigners in Japan

Compared to most other developed countries, Japan’s population exhibits a striking
degree of ethnic homogeneity. The number of foreign national residents remains relatively small. Nonetheless, demographic changes and steadily rising immigration levels
are gradually changing the face of Japanese society. The number of foreign nationals
resident in Japan has tripled in the past three decades. In the early 1980s, foreign nationals represented around 0.7% of Japan’s population, rising to approximately 2% in 2014.
These changes present transitional challenges for a society unused to a large number
of foreign residents. Predictably, there have been many legal challenges against laws
and practices believed to discriminate against foreign nationals. These challenges have a
mixed record of success. Recently, the Japanese Supreme Court has ruled that foreign
nationals residing in Japan have no legal entitlement to public assistance payments, one
part of Japan’s social welfare provision. Although foreigners have been receiving such
payments for several decades, the Supreme Court’s judgment confirms this to derive
from executive goodwill rather than legal entitlement.