Junior Chamber International Japan (JCIJ)

The Junior Chamber International Japan (JCIJ) was founded in 1951 as the headquarters for Junior Chamber branches all over Japan. JCIJ is a part of Junior Chamber International. Composed of members aged 20-40, the group aims to encourage young people to work for creation of a better society by voluntarily working and making proposals for political matters.

JCIJ has worked on promoting constitutional revision, working with one of the biggest pro-constitutional revision citizens’ groups, Utukushii Nippon no Kenpō o Tsukuru Kokumin no Kai (美しい日本の憲法とつくる国民の会), which is composed of many Nippon Kaigi dignities.

JCIJ made a constitutional draft in 2005 and started organizing town meetings to discuss the constitution nation-wide in 2008. In 2012, JCIJ finalized and published a full constitutional draft. The draft proposed adding Japanese spiritual and cultural values to the Preamble, setting the Emperor as the head of State, specifying that Japan holds both individual and collective self-defense rights and maintains a military, and creating a new chapter to determine emergency powers.

Under JCIJ there is a project team to promote constitutional revision, the Committee for the Promotion of Constitutional Revision (憲法改正推進委員会). In 2017, the committee organized a campaign named the Conference for the Establishment of Public Opinion on Constitutional Revision (憲法輿論確立会議), holding constitutional debate sessions and collecting answers for questions about constitutional revision throughout Japan; JCIJ published a report based on analysis of the questionnaires as well.