Sovereignty Matters

    “Unequal treaty” is the term Japanese students learn in their history class related to the treaties Japanese government had to accept when it resumed foreign relationship at the time of Meiji Restoration in mid-nineteenth century. Signature and its renewal of Japan-US Commerce and Navigation Treaty in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which marked Japan’s regain of extraterritoriality and tariff autonomy, are remembered as the end of diplomatically unequal era. The Japanese reminded of that history by unchangeable contract with International Olympic Committee over Tokyo 2020 games.

    Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Japanese Olympic Committee and IOC signed Host City Contract 2020 in Buenos Aires in 2013, which determined the conditions to hold Olympic games in Tokyo. In Article 66 on termination of contract, it says “In case of withdrawal of the Games by the IOC, or termination of this Contract by the IOC for any reason whatsoever, the City, the NOC (JOC), and the OCOG (Organizing Committee of Olympic Games) hereby waive any claim and right to any form of indemnity, damages or other compensation or remedy of any kind and hereby indemnify and hold harmless IOC indemnitees from any third party claims, actions or judgements in respect of such withdrawal or termination.”

   It is not hard to understand the rigidity of Japanese government on not cancelling Olympic games, when steep deterioration of infectious situation of COVID-19 in Tokyo or other regions in Japan early June. Termination of the games might have caused huge compensation, regarding possible loss of IOC income from US television networks that possessed discriminative right for broadcasting the games.

    From the perspectives of protecting ordinary lives, medical experts in Japan were warning the government that it was not the time for holding the huge sports event that might be prompting the people to go out with festive mood of Olympic games. “In this situation of infection,” told Shigeru Omi, chair of the governmental advisory board, “it is unlikely to have it held in ordinary sense.” The government of Japan, with firm belief of miraculous effect of the games by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, never accepted the idea, even if it decided to have games without audience.

    Total expenditure of Japan for the games estimated at the end of last year was about $18 billion. In spite of swelling budget for taking care of COVID patients and medical staffs or ailing economy, Japanese government has to accumulate appropriation for the international sports event. Defining sovereignty as self-determination of the nation, it can be said that Japan abandoned its sovereignty with one-sided contract paralleled with old unequal treaty. It may well be happening to future host nations or cities.