Surveys proposals for amending the 1947 Constitution. With the end of the Occupation in 1952, critics were free to propose amendments to the constitution. In its hearings, the Commission on the Constitution (1956-1964) produced a host of arguments in favor of revision, but the conservative parties have never had the two-thirds majority in the Diet required to pass an amendment. The 1991 Gulf War again stirred debate on the antiwar clause (Article 9) and stimulated a national debate on revision. In 1999, both houses of the Diet established commissions on the constitution and two years later, in May 2001, announced that public hearings would begin.
Keywords: arguments in favor of revision, Commission on the Constitution, commissions to study the constitution, critics of the constitution, proposed amendments, the Diet, The Gulf War (1991), two-thirds majority