• Kenji Banjo Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo

• Rieko Kage Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo

This presentation explains the changing of Japan’s foreign policy towards the activities of League of Nations and other related international organizations in the Interwar Period, which aimed for the establishment of peace and humanitarianism. To investigate this, this presentation focuses on three fields of activity of international organizations: establishment of compulsory jurisdiction at the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) and making of bilateral arbitration treaties, discussion concerning immigration and treatment of foreigners at the League of Nations, and the making of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War in 1929. In addition, this presentation focuses on bureaucratic process of the making of Japan’s foreign policy towards international organizations in this period, especially the making of divisions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan which deals with international organizations.

Kenji Banjo is a postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo. He received a PhD from the University of Tokyo in February 2023. He specialize in the field of the history of Japan’s foreign policy in the Interwar period, especially relationship between Japan and the League of Nations and other related international organizations.