Government | Good News for Humankind

Japan’s postwar constitution takes effect, renouncing war forever

By Peter Schulte / May 3, 1947 / Archive of Human Genius

Japan’s postwar constitution took effect on 3 May 1947, just two years after the country’s surrender, and boldly renounced war as a sovereign right. Drafted through an unlikely collaboration between American occupiers and Japanese legal scholars, it redefined the emperor as a symbol and placed real power with the people. Nearly eight decades on, not a single word has been amended.

U.S. Bill of Rights ratified, become first 10 amendments of the U.S. Constitution

The Bill of Rights amendments add specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government’s power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people.