1899 Nationality Law

"The conditions necessary for being a Japanese subject"

By William Wetherall

First posted 1 April 2006
Last updated 15 June 2014

Birth of "kokuseki" "Nihonjin" as raceless status • Naturalization law drafts • Nationality law drafts • Primacy of family law
Initial determination Hosokawa 1990 • Ninomiya 1983 • Sawaki 1981 • De Becker 1909 • Aoki Shuzo's constitution, 1872-1874
1899 Nationality Law (No. 66)   Nationality through father, mother, birth in Japan, marriage, adoption, naturalization
Promulgation and revision history • Nationality of children • Acquisition by aliens • Restrictions on acquired nationality
Losing, retaining, renouncing • Limitations on dual nationality • Regaining lost nationality
1899 Law concerning rights of those who have lost nationality (No. 94) 
1899 ordinance (Ordinance No. 51)  Adopted sons, incoming husbands, naturalization, restoration of nationality
1915 Japanese Law of Nationality pamphlet "No racial or national discrimination"
Discovery of pamphlet • Personal importance • Historical importance • Gilbert Bowles • J. E. De Becker • Reproduction of pamphlet
1916 revision (Law No. 27)  Renunciation and other measures to minimize dual nationality
1924 revision (Law No. 19)  Retention of nationality of children born in the Americas
1924 enforcement regulations (Ordinance No. 26)  Guidelines for enforcing 1899 law as revised in 1924
1925 SF Consulate General of Japan books  Law Cases Effecting Japanese in the United States 1916-1924
1st 1948 revision (Law No. 239)  Changes "Interior Minister" to "competent minister"
2nd 1948 revision (Law No. 195)  Changes "competent minister" to "Attorney General"

The birth of "kokuseki"

Japan introduced its first nationality law in 1899, the year its unequal treaties with the United States and other countries were abolished. The timing appears to be merely coincidental with the ending of ending of extraterritoriality treaties the same year. However, a law that determined Japanese status had to have considered the implications of alien status.

The keyword of the law -- kokuseki (国籍) -- did not come into existence until the 1880s, in the process of revising drafts of articles that were originally intended to be part of the Civil Code. The following summary of this development is mostly based on Ninomiya Masato's 1983 comparative study of nationality law and gender equality, which I have reviewed in Bibliography.

Four periods

Ninomiya breaks his study of nationality in Japan, after the start of the Meiji era, into the following four periods (Ninomiya 1983, pages 217-218).

Period 1   Until 1886, during which there were movements to revise the inside/outside [insider/outsider] marriage provisions (内外婚姻条規) and enact a naturalization law (帰化法).

Period 2   From 1887 to 1891, during which, in connection with the enactment of the constitution [in 1890] and movements to revise the unequal [extraterritorial] treaties, efforts to draft a nationality law (国籍法) were vigorously made, but in connection with the old [1890] Civil Code [approved but never enacted] it became a plan for a "naturalization law".

Period 3   The period of planning and revising the 1899 Nationality Law.

Period 4   The period when the enactment of the 1950 Nationality Law was carried out.

Thumbnail sketch of "kokuseki" development

Ninomiya gives nearly twelve pages to an overview of the development of "kokuseki" (国籍 state affiliation) in the course of tracing changes in how "status" as a Japanese was regarded in various drafts of what eventually became the 1899 Nationality Law.

Ninomiya then gives a thumbnail sketch of the first and second periods, and the start of the third period (page 218, bold emphasis and related notes are mine).

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"Nihonjin" as a raceless status

Ninomiya points out that the term 国籍 (kokuseki) had not yet been coined in 1873 when the measure permitting Japanese to marry and adopt aliens used the phrase 日本人タル分限 (Nihonjin taru bungen) or "the standing of being Japanese".

However, Ninomiya does not analyze the significance of this phrase. Moreover, he replaces it with 国籍 in citations of articles in the 1873 proclamation, and in drafts of later proposals to revise it -- thus compromising the linguistic credibility of his thesis.

It is, however, during attempts in 1883 to revise the 1873 proclamation that the term 国籍 is coined. Hence I have placed this part of the "kokuseki" story under 1873 intermarriage proclamation: Family law and "the standing of being Japanese", which see for further details.

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Naturalization law drafts

Among the papers of Inoue Kowashi (井上毅 1844-1895) is a document on the opinions of Gustave Boissonade (1825-1910) concerning a 1876 draft of a Nationalization Law (帰化法 kikahō) submitted by the Ministry of Justice to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for its consideration. The draft had sections regarding (1) the gain of the status of Japanese through naturalization and (2) the loss of such status by Japanese who naturalized in a foreign country.

The draft established provisions for naturalization to Japan and change of nationality from Japan. Japanese would need permission from the government to naturalize to a foreign country. There was no system for nationality divestment. There were limitations on the official capacities of naturalized persons. There were no ways to restore nationality. The age of eligibility for nationality would be twenty. (Ninomiya 1883:220-221)

Boissonade not only commented on the draft but wrote his own draft. In his draft he had a provision that an applicant for naturalization must be competent according to Japanese law, but must have reached an age of competency in one's own country. He also had a provision for "grand naturalization" (大帰化 daikika), which allows the government to confer nationality on an alien without regard to the qualifications required for ordinary naturalization. Both provisions were introduced in the 1899 Nationality Law and survive in the present Nationality Law (Ninomiya 1983:221).

No law of naturalization was promulgated at this time. However, there were requests to become Japanese other than through marriage.

Presumably sometime in the late 1870s, the Hokkaido Development Office (北海道開拓使, Hokkaidō Kaitakushi) -- or "Hokkaido Colonial Department" as it is usually known in English -- received, from two Chinese in Hokkaido, a petition stating that they "wish to enter the registry of your country and permanently reside and pursue a living in Hokkaido" (御国籍ニ入リ北海道ニ永住生計ヲ営ミ度). The petitioners were two of ten Chinese the office had employed to work in the territory. The office submitted to the Chancellor of the Great Council of State -- comparable to today's Prime Minister -- a notification expressing that it wished to enroll the two men under its jurisdiction in commoner registers (願意聞届　当使管下平民籍へ編入致度). (Ninomiya 1983:221)

According to Ninomiya, the office's request for permission to enroll the Chinese in local registers, which would have made them Japanese, was not permitted (Ninomiya 1983:221).

However, Asakawa Akihiro, in his 2003 and 2007 reports on this case, says that the two Chinese men were permitted to change their allegiance in 1879. See Becoming Japanese in the Meiji period for details.

Regarding naturalization legislation, Ninomiya states that there is evidence in a memo from Inoue Kowashi to Itō Hirobumi, dated 18 November 1886, concerning work being done in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on another draft of a law of naturalization. However, the concrete content of the draft is not known. (Ninomiya 1983:221).

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Nationality law drafts

Article 18 of the 1890 Constitution stated that the conditions for being a "subject of Japan" (日本臣民 Nippon shinmin) would be as determined by law. The Diet was therefore obliged to come up with a law of nationality.

Efforts to come up with legislation concerning nationality and naturalization had, of course, already begun. In 1886 Inoue Kowashi produced a proposal that (1) the laws concerning nationality be divided between the civil code then being drafted and a law of naturalization, (2) nationality acquisition through birth be based on jus sanguinis, and (3) "Aliens appointed by the Government of Japan shall, if there are no other agreements, be nationals of naturalization during the appointment" (日本政府ヨリ任用シタル外国人ハ別段ノ約束アルニ非サレバ任用ノ間帰化ノ国民トス). (Ninomiya 1983:222)

The third provision took into consideration contemporary negotiations to revise treaties, and drew from Germany's 1870 nationality law. Germany's law provided that German by naturalization, unless by grand naturalization, could not hold specified higher government posts or the ranks of general or admiral. A preliminary draft of the Meiji constitution, by Karl Friedrich Hermann Roesler (1834-1894), had included similar provisions, inspired by the 1870 German nationality law. (Ninomiya 1983:222)

Natsushima draft

Both Article 18 of the 1890 Constitution and Article 10 of the 1947 Constitution, which stipulate that conditions for being a subject (1890) or national (1947) of Japan will be determined by law, have their origin in Article 49 of the Natsushima draft constitution -- so-called because it was written by Itō, Inoue, and others at Itō's summer home in Natsushima, Kanagawa prefecture on the 8th and 9th of August 1887.

The copy of the Natsushima draft that survives shows neat overstriking, as follows, reflecting how the original version was edited to eliminate the treatment of naturalization as a separate subject.

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Primacy of family law

In 1887, Inoue Kowashi prepared a draft of a "National Status Law" (国民身分法 Kokumin mibun hō). This was the first draft of an organic nationality law. Articles 12 and 14 concerned nationalization and grand naturalization.

By 1889 or so, apparently to accommodate the terminology of the new constitution, the draft had been retitled the "Imperial Subject Status Law" (帝国臣民身分法 Teikoku shinmin mibun hō). Itō, Inoue, and others incorporated some of Roesler's opinions in the draft, then submitted it to the Privy Council Imperial Status Law Committee.

The Privy Council committee renamed the draft "Nationality Law of Japan" (日本国籍法 Nihon kokuseki hō). All instances of "status as subject" (臣民身分) and "status as national" (国民身分) became "nationality" 国籍 (kokuseki). (Ninomiya 1983:223-224)

1890 Civil Code

Provisions for "standing as a national" (国民分限 kokumin bungen) were embedded in the old Civil Code, promulgated as Law No. 98 of 7 October 1890. However, this code -- modelled after the French civil code -- was never enforced, owing to controversy over its effects on family law.

Chapter 2, titled "Acquisition of the standing of national" (国民分限ノ取得 Kokumin bungen no shutoku), contained provisions for gain and loss of national status. At this point, conditions and forms of naturalization were to be covered by a special law.

A heavily revised Civil Code, structured more like German law, was finally promulgated and enforced in two parts on 27 April 1896 (Books I-III, Law No. 89) and on 21 June 1898 (Books IV-V, Law No. 9) -- without provisions on nationality. The entire Civil Code was enforced from 16 July 1898.

While the promulgated but unenforced 1890 Civil Code was being revamped, drafts of a comprehensive nationality law, covering also naturalization, went back and forth between the Imperial Diet and various committees. As with the civil code, the main concern with the nationality law was that it reflect Japanese family law. (Ninomiya 1983:226-230, Hosokawa 1990:182-184)

See 1890 Civil Code for text, translation, and more commentary on "National status" section of 1890 Civil Code.

Corporate families

Family law principles and practices which had to be accommodated by the Nationality Law included the following (Ninomiya 1983:230-231).

Singular identity of husband and wife
Singular identity of family
Incoming husband marriage
Adoption alliance

The singularity of spousal and familial identity -- by then the foundation of family registration practices -- was pretty much in line with emerging international principles of one nationality per couple and one nationality per family.

The presumption reflected in the nationality laws of many other countries -- that a wife would follow her husband, and that children of married parents would identify with their father's family and locality -- also dovetailed with practices in Japan, which were mostly patrilocal and patrilineal. This meant that, with some exceptions, an alien wife would lose her original nationality and gain her husband's nationality, and their children would gain their father's nationality.

However, Japanese family law, which regarded a registered family as a corporate entity, permitted males to enter other families as an adopted son or husband. Male-heir and husband adoption practices, more peculiar to Japan, had already been accommodated by the 1873 proclamation that permitted alliances of marriage or adoption between Japanese and aliens.

Predicated on family law

The extent to which the criteria for acquiring and losing Japanese nationality were predicated on family law -- and the essentially territorial quality of family registers -- cannot be overstressed.

It is highly significant that Japanese family law also became the standard by which Japan was to legally assimilate Taiwan, Karafuto, and Chosen into the prefectural system -- and that the territoriality of family registers became the standard by which imperial subjects changed their legal status within the empire.

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Initial determination

In the context of nationality law, an "initial determination" is a description of who qualifies as a national at the time a state first defines its nationality. It is of some interest that Japan's 1899 Nationality Law came into effect without an initial determination. No legislation, ordinance, or decree defined the population of "Japanese" that would gain or lose members through the application of new law.

Though 国籍 (kokuseki) means "national register" affiliation, there is no "national register" as such in Japan. There are only "family registers" (戸籍 koseki), which after their nationalization from 1872 came to double as registries of nationals. When Japan enforced its first Nationality Law in 1899, it was merely assumed that Japan's initial nationality, or demographic territory, consisted of everyone who was a member of a family register affiliated with Japan's sovereign territory.

Since it came into effect in 1899, the Nationality Law has determined who should be added to a family register because they newly qualify for nationality, or who should be removed because they no longer qualify. Hence proof of nationality is membership in a family register.

Here I will review some remarks by others on the problem of what is called "initial determination" in nationality law parlance.

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Hosokawa Kiyoshi on "initial determination"

Hosokawa Kiyoshi, a career Ministry of Justice legalist who has specialized in nationality law, makes only this somewhat flawed statement about initial determination in his English overview (Hosokawa 1990:190-191; see Bibliography for particulars and review).

Crossing the line between law and social history is always a dangerous enterprise. Hosokawa's impulse to oversimplify and racialize Japan's complex social history gets him into trouble here. His reference to Ninomiya at the end of the last paragraph is also misleading.

While Hosokawa may have been inspired by Ninomiya's remarks about the meaning of "Japanese" before the advent of "kokuseki" (see above and below), Ninomiya said nothing about Japan being "closed . . . to virtually all foreign intercourse since the seventeenth century" -- nothing about the population of Japan consisting "almost entirely of ethnic Japanese" -- nothing about family registers -- and nothing about initial determination.

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Ninomiya Masato on "the starting point kokumin"

I have already shown a full translation of Ninomiya's statement about the origin of jus sanguinis in Japan's Nationality Law under the The birth of "kokuseki" section at the top of this page. Here, again, I am showing the entire paragraph, marking this time the lines that are most closely associated with Hosokawa's remarks (see above section) about "initial determination" (Ninomiya 1983:218, bold emphasis mine).

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Sawaki Takao on proto-nationals

Sawaki Takao (1931-1993) was a professor of law at St. Paul's University. His speciality was international private law, which includes nationality law.

Here I wish to examine the remarks Sawaki made concerning the initial determination of Japanese nationality, in an article that was part of a feature on discrimination and the Nationality Law in the 7 August 1981 issue of Asahi Journal. See Sawaki 1981 in the Nationality section of the Bibliography for full particulars and a review.

On a personal note, Sawaki was one of the three scholars who wrote the expert opinion submitted in the Tokyo District Court hearings in Shapiro v. State (1977-u360). The same opinion was submitted in two other nationality confirmation cases, of my children, Sugiyama v. State (1978-u175) and Sugiyama v. State (1982-u57). He also wrote the most thorough overview of the first (Tokyo District Court) decisions handed down in the Shapiro case and the first Sugiyama case in March 1981. See Sugiyama v. State for further details on both cases and references to related publications.

In the following remark, Sawaki recognizes the historical background that make it perfectly natural to view "Japanese" as an essentially racioethnic entity. However, he clearly points out, as not many analysts do, that the Nationality Law embraces all people who are Japanese regardless of their racioethnic ancestry.

In the above extract, Sawaki made some interesting and vital points about why Japan's population registers became the starting point of its legal "nation" for purposes of applying its 1899 Nationality Law. However, a number of his observations, in the rest of the above section, and elsewhere in his article, are problematic. Here are just a few examples.

Sawaki on naturalization

Sawaki also noted that Japan's nationality laws have been fairly permissive in their views of the naturalization of Japanese to other countries, as in the following paragraph, which immediately follows the above extraction (Sawaki 1981:96).

While Sawaki correctly attributed constraints on alien naturalization to administrative policies rather than to the Nationality Law itself, his imputation of these constraints to government policies is only half the truth.

Like many critics of racialism, and the use of law to foster racialism, Sawaki fails to point out the shortcomings of attitudes of people in general toward the law as a raceless civil instrument.

Though true that some bureaucrats have used their authority to administer naturalization provisions in arguably racialist ways, blame also has to be put on the lawmakers who have allowed such bureaucrats to have their way.

Blame also has to be put on the people who have allowed the naturalization system to continue as it has without much protest. I refer not only to Japanese who have spoken out about naturalization procedures -- which, for sure, could be a bit simpler -- but also to resident aliens -- who have been better at complaining than acting.

Many Koreans in Japan, for example, have racialized their own and Japanese nationality to the point that they easily believe their own myths about the difficulty of naturalizing in Japan. The only real issue -- at the time Sawaki wrote this article -- was the Ministry of Justice's extralegal (and arguably illegal) administrative guidance concerning the kinds of names that naturalizers (particularly Chinese and Koreans) were expected (and at times pressured) to adopt as Japanese.

No Korean organization ever mounted a systematic and protracted movement against the governments administrative policies concerning names. Most advocacy groups still prefer to insist on what amount to special privileges for themselves as perpetual victims of history. They themselves impute racial qualities to Japanese nationality -- qualities which have no foundation in the law or its administration. In any event, names are the providence of the Family Register Law, not the Nationality Law.

Sawaki on state and race

Sawaki next touches upon the problem of dual nationality, particularly as it affected children born in right-of-soil states like the United States who would also gain the nationality of Japan through a Japanese father, and the problem of differentiating between the state as a political community of nationals defined by nationality, and group defined by blood descent. China, also, had this problem.

1930 Hague Convention on Nationality

Sawaki notes that the Hague Convention on Nationality called for the elimination of stateless and dual nationality in accordance with the principle that everyone should have one and only one nationality (see Dual nationality treaties and Statelessness treaties).

He observes that Japan's Nationality Law had evolved into a law which reflected the provisions of the Hague convention. He alludes to the revisions made in the 1899 Nationality Law, and retained in the 1950 law, which provided for "the event that children born in place-of-birth states to Japanese fathers, became nationals of the country of their birth, and did not hold (保有 hoyū) the nationality of Japan" (Sawaki 1981:96).

Japan's nationality law thus came to adopt the international principle of one nationality per person. And this, Sawaki argues, confirms that in Japan "a political community of nationals mediated [conveyed, borne, transmitted] by nationality and a blood-related [descent] group are different things (国籍を媒介とする政治的国民共同体と血縁集団とは別個のものである kokuseki o baikai to suru seijiteki kokumin kyōdōtai to ketsuen shūdan to wa bekko no mono de aru)" (Sawaki 1981:96).

1980 People's Republic of China

At this point Sawaki segues to the People's Republic of China, which had recently enforced a new nationality law (Sawaki 1981:96).

This is a fairly conventional -- but somewhat flawed -- criticism of Japan's "sentiments" (感情 kanjō) toward "Nikkeijin" (日系人 nikkeijin) -- meaning "people related to Japan" by virtue of family register ancestry.

See Nikkeijin for an account of what this term means and doesn't.

To be continued.

Sawaki on differentiation of nationals

Sawaki implies -- i.e., he insinuates without stating -- that Japan's nationality law does not differentiate nationals by race or ethnicity (Sawaki 1981:97).

As elsewhere in his article, this observation is marred by errors and half-truths.

Born and naturalized nationals

Contrary to what Sawaki claims, Articles 16 and 17 of the 1899 Nationality Law drew a clear line between those who had become Japanese through birth, and those who had obtained their nationality through other provisions. The latter included not just "naturalized" Japanese (as Sawaki implies), but also Japanese who had obtained their nationality through marriage or adoption.

Article 16 listed several high level political and military posts for which the latter were not eligible.

Article 17 provided that the Minister of Justice could remove the restrictions after five years for those who had acquired nationality through grand naturalization (Article 11), and after ten years for others.

All such restrictions ended with the enforcement of the 1950 Nationality Law.

Interior and exterior nationals

Also contrary to what Sawaki implies, the family registration system was not particularly contrived as a means of differentiating the imperial subnations.

Registers within the interior (prefectures) were themselves territorial. Registers were primarily affiliated with municipalities. Their prefectural affiliations changed when prefectural borders were redrawn, as often happened during the first two decades of the Meiji period. Even today, mergers of municipalities result in new family register jurisdictions.

Taiwan and Korea already had population registers that were essentially territorial. Karafuto already had some registers were vestiges of early Japanese administration of parts of the island.

In any event, Taiwan, Karafuto, and Korea were legally differentiated territories at the time Japan incorporated them into its sovereign empire. The histories of social change in these territories, when they were parts of Japan, are histories of a gradual introduction of interior-style family law to the exterior subnations.

These histories, though somewhat different for each of the exterior subnations, have in common the slow but steady removal of territorial distinctions, with the long-term aim of total legal integration. As histories go, they are not essentially different from other histories of territorial annexation, merger, or integration.

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J. E. De Becker on initial determinant ion

Gilbert Bowles made the following comment in his 1915 pamphlet Japanese Law of Nationality (see content of entire pamphlet below).

De Becker was referring to many former alien men and women who had become Japanese through marriage under the 1873 proclamation on marriage and adoption alliances between Japanese and aliens. He was also referring to himself. For in 1891, as the incoming husband of Kobayashi Ei, he became a Japanese named Kobayashi Beika (see full story below).

Bowles does not give further particulars, but he appears to be referring to the Appendix of De Becker's 1909 translation of the 1898 Civil Code, which is supposed to include De Becker's translation of the 1899 Nationality Law. I have not been able to examine a copy of this work, but from various sources I gather that the particulars are as follows.

J. E. De Becker (デ・ベッカー)
Annotated Civil Code of Japan (日本民法注解)
London: Butterworth
Yokohama: Kelley & Walsh
Volumes 1 and 2, 1909
Volumes 3 and 4, 1910

A Tokyo antiquarian bookseller made the following observation in its offering of a complete first edition set for 189,000 yen (retrieved September 2007).

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Aoki Shuzo's constitution

The 1890 Constitution did not define "Japan" and left the determination of "subjects of Japan" to law. The 1899 Nationality Law stipulated the rules for acquiring and losing Japanese nationality from the time the law came into effect, but it did not state criteria for determining who was Japanese at the time the law came into effect.

1872-1874 draft by Aoki Shūzō

During the first decades of the Meiji period, there were numerous proposals for a constitution. Over forty drafts of proposals are known. Most lists begin with the 1872-1874 work of Aoki Shūzō (青木周蔵 1844-1914), who had studied in Germany from 1868 and joined the Foreign Ministry in 1873.

In 1874, Aoki became Japan's minister to Germany. It was through Aoki that Karl Friedrich Hermann Roesler (1834-1894) came to Japan in 1878 to advise the Foreign Ministry on matters of law.

On 25 January 1877, under the 1873 Proclamation on the making of marriage and adoption alliances with aliens, Aoki was permitted to marry Elisabeth von Rhade, a German woman.

Aoki served as foreign minister several times, under several prime ministers, during the late 1880s and 1890s.

Aoki was Japan's minister to both Germany and Great Britain 1894 when the Great Britain and Japan negotiated a new treaty of commerce that ended extraterritoriality in 1899. The negotiations did not go particularly well because Japan had held up the enforcement of a controversial civil code, and did not yet have a commercial code. did not yet have a civil code or commercial code.

Finally, on 16 July 1894, the two countries signed the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, also called the Aoki-Kimberley Treaty, because the names of these two men appear on the treaty. Japan agreed not to seek to enforce the treaty until its codes were fully operative (Kayaoglu 2004:25-30).

Turan Kayaoglu, a professor of political science at the University of Washington, has presented a fascinating overview of the "Abolition of Extraterritoriality in Japan, 1894-1899" in a working paper called Sovereignty, State-Building and the Abolition of Extraterritoriality (May 2004). The paper focuses on Japan, Turkey, and China.

Aoki was the ambassador to the United States in 1906.

帝号大日本政典 (Teigō Dai-Nippon seiten) must have struck people as impressive. 帝号 was an imperial name, in particular the posthumous name of an emperor, and could mean all emperors. 大日本 was a beautified name for the country. 政典 was the title of an 8th century Tang compendium of political conventions.

Together these elements meant something like "State Codes of Great Japan of Emperors" -- or simply "Codes of Imperial Japan".

The heavily edited draft of Aoki's constitution shows some remarkable honing of terminology and phrasing.

Aoki spoke of 日本国ノ民位 (Nihonkoku no min'i) to speak of "the status of the people of Japan" in calling for an end to "peers" (華族 kazoku) and "commoner" (平民 heimin) statuses. The topic sentence of his article on obligations and and qualifications for military service thus read 華族平民ノ差別ナク総テ日本国ノ民位ニ列スル者ハ.

He used 人民 (jinmin) most commonly when referring more generally to "people" as in "people's abodes" (人民ノ住家 jinmin no jūka), "people's residences" (人民ノ居宅 jinmin no kyotaku), and "people's possessions" (人民ノ固有物 jinmin no koyūbutsu).

He spoke of both "persons who are Japanese" (Nihonjin taru mono 日本人タル者) and "people of Japan" (Nihon jinmin 日本人民).

Article 15 (第十五章)
ﾘ族平民の差別なく、高ﾄ日本人たる者は一夫同時に一婦に配し、一婦同時に一夫に配すべし、要するﾉ正配ある者は別に倍配を保つ事を得ず。
Without any differentiation [discrimination] (sabetsu 差別) between "peers" and "commoners", as for all persons who are Japanese, one husband will have one wife, and one wife will have one husband, and those who are proper spouses are not to have two spouses.

Article 57 第五十七章
議官たる者は、日本人民の名代たるべし。其会議討論するものは、即ち　皇帝独り政治を私せず、広く之を人民に忖度する所以なり。但し某議士、素と某州より撰択せらるると雖、議院に会集し政府に対向するときは、各〃広く日本人民を名代するの覚悟を存し、狭く一州の私を顧る事勿るべし。
This speaks of the officials (gikan 議官) of the House of Elders (Genrōin 元老院), the national assembly created in 1875 to draft a constitution, as the representatives (myōdai 名代) of the people of Japan (Nihon jinmin 日本人民). It clearly states that the emperor is not to rule the country alone, but that its rule is to be spread among the people (jinmin 人民). Moreover, officials are to endeavor to broardly represent all the "people of Japan" and are not to narrowly think of their own province.

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1899 Nationality Law

The 1899 Nationality Law established, for the first time in Japan, legal criteria for acquiring and losing Japanese nationality. Naturalization also became possible, for the first time, with the enforcement of this law from 1 April 1899.

While providing measures for naturalization, the 1899 law continued to recognize the principles of nationality acquired through marriage or adoption, set down in the 1873 Great Council of State Proclamation No. 103, and the modifications stipulated in Law No. 21 of 1898. A few months after the new law came into force, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued an ordinance (No. 51 of 1899), related to both the 1873 proclamation and the 1899 law, concerning procedures for obtaining permission to make an alien an adopted son or incoming husband, which would cause the alien to become Japanese.

Promulgation and revision history

The 1899 Nationality Law (Law No. 66) was promulgated on 16 May 1899 and enforced from 1 April 1899. It was revised four times -- in 1916 and in 1924, and twice in 1947 (effective in 1948). It remained in effect until 1 July 1950, when the 1950 Nationality Law (Law No. 147), promulgated on 4 May 1950, came into force, thereby abolishing it.

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1899 Law No. 94

Concerning rights of those who have lost nationality

A number of laws, ordinances and regulations were passed to facilitate the enforcement of the Nationality Law, or to deal with its effects. The following law dealt with the effect of losing nationality -- namely, the disposition of "rights" that a family would no longer be able to exercise because its members were no longer Japanese.

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1899 Ministry of Home Affairs Ordinance No. 51

This ordinance established (1) procedures for Japanese who wish to make an alien either an adopted son [yoshi] or an incoming husband [nyufu], and (2) procedures for foreigners who wish to naturalize or restore a lost Japanese nationality.

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1915 pamphlet on "Japanese Law of Nationality"

"No racial or national discrimination" in Japanese law

Presented here is a complete reproduction of a six-page pamphlet that changed my thinking and some ways my life. First, though, the story of its discovery, why it proved to be important for me personally as well as to my understanding of how laws in the United States racially discriminated against immigrants because of their race or national origin, and profiles of Gilbert Bowles and J. E. De Becker.

Discovery of pamphlet

I discovered the following pamphlet one day between the fall of 1972 and the spring of 1975, in the stacks of the Doe Library of the University of California at Berkeley.

Bowles, Gilbert
Japanese Law of Nationality
Tokyo: Gilbert Bowles, 15 May 1915
6 page pamphlet in softcover

I cannot remember what else I was doing at the time, but I it was one of several volumes I checked out and lugged over to Cleo's on Telegraph to copy on the cheapest self-service machines near the campus.

The copy is now a bit faded but still readable. I wrote the call number in the upper-left corner of the first page of the copy in red ballpoint, and the character 全 in the upper-right corner to indicate that the copy was complete. No, I didn't wear geta.

JQ
1686
A3
1915

The copy is well marked with the red wax pencil I used at the time -- even in my own books, heaven forbid -- to highlight points of interest or doubt.

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Personal importance of pamphlet

It was this small pamphlet that started me thinking that most of what I had been led to believe at the time about citizenship, nationality, and race was not true.

I knew nothing at the time about "nationality" as a matter of law. I knew I was a "citizen" of the United States, and I figured others were "citizens" of their respective country. It was my impression that "nationality" had something to do with race or ethnicity -- as the expression "national origins" generally implied in the United States.

I also assumed -- because so many others, including my professors, seemed to insinuate -- that being "Japanese" had something to do with race or ethnicity. So I figured that "nationality" in Japan also had something to do with "blood" in the racial sense of this word.

But in the stacks of Doe that day -- on the very last page of the this pamphlet -- I read the following statement.

I had no idea what to make of this remark. Nor did I quite understand the significance of another remark, that certain "aliens" who had been "naturalized by adoption" were considered "native-born" under Japan's Nationality Law.

These two observations had been written six decades before I read them, and both flew in the face of the "conventional wisdom" I was passively acquiring in graduate school. So I copied the pamphlet and began looking for explanations.

It is not that I suddenly devoted my life to the understanding of this pamphlet. It was just there, in my files, and now and then I would review it, and wonder anew at what it all meant.

Its personal significance only became apparent in 1978 when my daughter was born and she became the plaintiff in a law suit seeking to confirm that she should be Japanese. And again when my son was born in 1982 and he became a plaintiff in a similar lawsuit.

Only then did I fully understand that Japan's Nationality Law, though revised in 1950, had all along been free of racial and national discrimination.

Most people then -- from journalists to activists -- didn't believe me. Many people still don't believe that being Japanese has nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

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Historical importance of pamphlet

If it a few years for me to feel the implications of the pamphlet in my personal and family life, it took a few more for me to fully appreciate its historical setting and significance.

Only when I plunged into the history of Japanese emigration to the United States and the response of particularly California and Washington, D.C. to the presence of an increasing number of Americans of Japanese descent in the state and country did I start to fathom the pamphlet's contemporary importance. And only when I placed the pamphlet in the sequence of legal developments in both the United States and Japan, in response to the "Japanese Problem" in America, did I realize why Bowles went to the trouble to produce and distribute the pamphlet.

Bowles compiled the pamphlet at a time when laws were being passed in California and elsewhere in the United States prohibiting aliens "ineligible to citizenship" from owning land, and when Japan was making "gentleman's agreements" concerning its issuance of passports to Japanese who might be thinking of settling in the United States, particularly in California, which in 1913 had passed its then controversial and now notorious "Alien Land Law".

It was also a time when the United States was pressuring Japan to permit its nationals to renounce their nationality, in order to reduce the number of US citizens who were also nationals of Japan -- having been born in the United States to Japanese immigrants. Their immigrant parents were not able to naturalize because of their race -- no, not because of their race, but because America's "citizenship" laws were racist.

Some Americans who knew Japan -- who were living or had lived in Japan -- were siding with Japanese who took offense at being racially barred in the United States -- not only from becoming citizens but, in some states from owning land or from marrying "whites".

The importance of this little pamphlet was that it was written as a vehicle for the message that, unlike laws in the United States, laws in Japan did not discriminate because of nationality or race. An alien's putative race or nationality was not, in Japan, a barrier to becoming Japanese.

The pamphlet which I copied was gifted to the UC Berkeley Library on 16 September 1915, the year it was published in Tokyo. Apparently it was privately published and distributed by the compiler, Gilbert Bowles, who was living in Tokyo at the time.

Bowles also compiled and distributed a similar pamphlet called "Land Tenure by Foreigners in Japan", as reprinted from the November 1914 issue of "The Japan Peace Movement". This seems to have been a Quaker publication, as Bowles was a Quaker missionary in Japan, and he was active in the peace movement that followed the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905.

Someone -- possibly Bowles himself -- gifted the pamphlet I copied to the University of California library, if that is what the stamp on the cover means. In other words, it appears that Bowles not only published the pamphlet but distributed it to places where he hoped it might influence people whose opinion mattered.

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Gilbert Bowles

Gilbert Bowles (1869-1960) was an American. He served in the Friends Foreign Mission in Japan from 1901 to 1941. Apparently he is buried in the foreign section of the Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo, though I have not dug into this question. His wife, Minnie P. Bowles, is said to have served in the same mission between 1893 and 1941.

This aside has nothing to do with Japan's Nationality Law. Rather it is about one individual who was sufficiently interested in Japan's Nationality Law in 1915 to publish a pamphlet and go to the trouble to cite De Becker's statement about there being no racial or national discrimination in the law.

Today Bowles would be regarded a publicist for human rights. Like many missionaries who knew Japan, he appears to have advocated an end to discrimination against Japanese immigrants in the United States, who were not allowed to naturalize because they were neither "white" nor of "African nativity" or "African descent". Their "ineligibility to citizenship" because of their putative "race" was legally specified in the guise of the racialist term "national origin".

I believe one of the reasons Bowles published this pamphlet was to show that Japan's Nationality Law -- unlike America's laws -- did not codify "racial or national discrimination". While this was clear from the law itself, Bowles stressed this point in his comments at the end of the pamphlet by citing De Becker, not only an authority on Japanese law, but an example of someone who had become a Japanese national through marriage -- something unimaginable in the United States.

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Kobayashi Beika aka J. E. De Becker

Bowles failed to point out the fact -- perhaps because he thought most informed readers at the time would have known -- that J. E. De Becker was a living example of the absolute neutrality in Japanese law regarding the race or nationality of aliens who wanted to become Japanese.

Joseph Ernest De Becker (1863-1929), born in London and educated in the United States, had come to Japan in 1887 and become Japanese on 29 July 1891 as the incoming husband (入夫 nyūfu) of Kobayashi Ei (小林エイ), a Kanagawa commoner. As a Japanese he was known as Kobayashi Beika (小林米珂) (Koyama 1995:268)

De Becker, an attorney, was the first person to translate Japan's basic laws into English. Today, though, he is better known as the author of The Nightless City (Or the "History of the Yoshiwara Yukwaku History of the Yoshiwara Yukwaku"), Yokohama: Z.P. Maruya & Co. Ltd., 1899.

The first edition of Nightless City -- called 不夜城 (Fuyajō) in Japanese -- was attributed only an to "An English Student of Sociology ******". The colophon, though, says it was published on 30 June 1899 by 小林米珂 (Kobayashi Beika) of 奈川縣久良岐郡中村千五百四十九番地 (Kanagawa-ken Kuraki-gun Nakamura 1549-banchi).

The address is that of Kobayashi and his wife -- originally hers, then also his as a result of their marriage. Before the marriage, he had been a resident -- as required by extraterritorial laws at the time -- of the Yokohama Settlement (横浜居留地 Yokohama Kyoryūchi), a treaty concession for foreigners.

In April 1890, the year before he became Kobayashi, De Becker sent a query to the prime minister asking if it was possible "to change his allegiance to Japanese nationality" (日本国籍に帰化する Nihon kokuseki ni kika suru). The reply, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was to the effect that there were no examples of a foreigner being permitted "to change allegiance to Japan" (日本への帰化 Nihon e no kika) other than through adoption as a son-in-law (婿養子 muko yōshi) or an incoming husband (入夫 nyūfu).

The above anecdote comes from Koyama (1995:115). He does not, however, directly cite De Becker's query or the government response. Hence the language used in the exchange cannot be confirmed.

De Becker went on to translate many Japanese laws, including the 1899 Nationality Law, as noted in the pamphlet.

Without further ado, Bowles's 1915 pamphlet.

   Foreigners Who Have Obtained Japanese Nationality,
                      1904 to 1913.

               (From Reports of Home Department)

             Naturalized   Adopted and   Nationality   Total
                             Nyufu        Regained
English            2           7             5          14
American           2           1             7          10
German            --           1             2           3
Chinese          158           7            17         182
French             5          --            --           5
Korean            --           1            --           1
Portuguese        --           1            --           1
Total            167          18            31         216

大正四年五月 十 日印刷
大正四年五月十五日發行

発行兼編輯人　　キルバート、ボールス
　　　　　　　　東京市芝區三田功運町三十番地

印 　刷　 人    ジェー、エム、ガーデナー
　　　　　　　　東京市麹町區土手三番町三十二番地

印　 刷　 所    株式會社　秀　英　舎
　　　　　　　　東京市京橋區西紺屋町二十七番地

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1916 revision of 1899 Nationality Law

The 1916 revision clarified conditions under which a Japanese woman who married an alien would lose her nationality, and provided -- for the first time -- provisions for renunciation.

Pressure from American states

The renunciation measures were introduced in response to pressure from North and South American states, but especially the United States, to permit dual-national offspring of Japanese immigrants to singularize their nationality. Most American states had place-of-birth nationality laws, and some were concerned about dual nationality -- in addition to racial concerns about Japanese immigration.

Dual nationals who were domiciled in the country of their alien nationality could renounce their Japanese nationality with the permission from the Ministry of Justice.

Renunciation by representation

Provisions were also made for the parents or guardians of a dual-national minor to renounce on behalf of the minor. These provisions were dropped with the introduction of the nationality retention system in 1924 (see below).

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1924 revision of 1899 Nationality Law

The main aim of this revision was to establish procedures for Japanese residing in specified American states to file notification of intent to retain nationality for a child born in the country within two weeks of its birth.

The two-week period was the time within which a notification of birth had to be filed under the family registration law.

Specified American states

An imperial ordinance (No. 262 of 1924) specified that the retention provision of Article 20-2(1) in the 1924 revision applied to Japanese residing in the United States (亜米利加合衆国), Argentina (亜爾然丁国), Brazil (伯剌西爾国), Canada (加奈陀), Chile (智利国), and Peru (秘露国). Mexico was added to the list in 1926 by another imperial ordinance (No. 16 of 1926).

Note   Both ordinances are mentioned in Hosokawa 1990 (page 185). The character names for the countries are as shown in the version of Imperial Ordinance No. 262 in Tashiro 1974 (page 837). Tashiro's text shows that the ordinance was sanctioned on 15 November, promulgated in the Official Gazette on 17 November, and came into force from 1 December 1924 with the revisions of Law 19. Tashiro does not show, or mention, Imperial Ordinance No. 16 of 1926. Mexico was probably shown as 墨西哥.

All the designated countries were American states with place-of-birth nationality laws. The 1924 retention-of-nationality measure was made in response to diplomatic pressure -- especially from the United States, which was then in the throes of an anti-alien, anti-Oriental, anti-dual-national tantrum -- to make it more difficult for children born to Japanese parents in the designated countries to become dual nationals through birth. The United States was also concerned with Japanese immigration in Latin American countries.

Changes in renunciation measures

Article 20-2(2) of the 1924 revision also provided that those who retained their nationality according to the revision, and resided in the country of the foreign nationality, could renounce their Japanese nationality in accordance with their wish to do so -- that is, they would not require ministerial permission to do so.

However, Article 20-3 provided that those in similar circumstances, who had become dual nationals before the 1924 revision, would have to receive the permission of the Ministry of Justice in order to renounce their nationality (as provided for in the 1916 revision). In either case, they would lose their Japanese nationality upon effecting renunciation.

Provisions made in 1916, for parents or guardians of a dual-national minor to renounce on behalf of the minor, were dropped with the introduction of the nationality retention system.

Impact on later nationality laws

The retention measure was retained in the 1950 law. And it became the basis of the declaration of choice provision introduced in the 1985 revision.

Japan did not in the past -- and still does not -- prohibit dual nationality acquired at time of birth. Nor does it actually prohibit dual nationality arising later in life.

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1924 Nationality Law Enforcement Regulations

While there had been a number of ministerial ordinances concerning enforcement of the 1873 Great Council of State proclamation and the 1899 Nationality Law, these are the first "Nationality Law Enforcement regulations" so-called.

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1925 San Francisco Consulate General of Japan case books

In 1925, the San Francisco Consulate General of Japan compiled and published Documental History of Law Cases affecting Japanese in the United States 1916-1924 in two thick paper-bound volumes. Volume 1 covered Naturalization Cases and Cases Affecting Constitutional and Treaty Rights. Volume 2 covered Japanese Land Cases.

While the cases in this publication involve US and not Japanese status laws, its timing reflects the gravity of 1924 developments in US-Japan relations regarding the issue of "race" in US immigration, alien property, and naturalization laws, and Japan's responses to US fears of dual nationality.

See SF CG of Japan 1925 in Nationality section of Bibliography for particulars and review.

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First 1948 revision of 1899 Nationality Law

This revision did not effect the provisions of the Nationality Law but changed only the name of the competent minister who oversaw the administration of the law. The revision was effected by an article in a law that abolished the Ministry of Interior Affairs and other administrative structures at the end of 1947 as directed by the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP) during the Occupation of Japan after World War II.

From 1 January 1948, what had been the Naimushō (内務省) or "Interior Ministry" since 1873, headed by the Naimu Daijin (内務大臣) or "Minister of Interior" since 1885, was dispanded.

The 1899 Nationality Law was revised to reflect this change in the title of the competent minister.

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Second 1948 revision of 1899 Nationality Law

This revision did not effect the provisions of the Nationality Law but changed only the name of the competent minister who oversaw the administration of the law. The revision was effected by an article in a law that replaced the Ministry of Justice with the Attorney General's Office, as directed by the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP) during the Occupation of Japan after World War II.

From 15 February 1948, what had been the Shihōshō (司法省) or "Ministry of Justice" since Meiji 4-7-9 (24 August 1871) headed by the Shih#333; Daijin (司法大臣) or "Minister of Justice" since 1885, was replaced by the Hōmuchō (法務庁) or "Attorney General's Office" headed by the Hōmu Sōsai (法務総裁) or "Attorney General".

The 1899 Nationality Law was revised to reflect this change in the title of the competent minister. Such a revision was unnecessary when from 1 June 1949 the office was renamed the Hōmufu (法務府), because the title of the competent minister did not change. The English terms for both the office and the title of the competent minister also remained unchanged.

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