The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 12 | Issue 35 | Number 1 | Article ID 4171 | Aug 29, 2014

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Jus Koseki: Household registration and Japanese citizenship戸籍主義　戸籍と日本国籍

Karl Jakob Krogness

The anthology Japan’s household registrationsystem and citizenship: Koseki, identificationand documentation, David Chapman and KarlJakob Krogness, eds. (Routledge 2014) providesa first, extensive, and critical overview ofJapan’s koseki system. Situated from theseventh century Taika Reforms until today atthe center of Japanese governance and society,the koseki opens up for comprehensive anddeep exploration the Japanese state, family,and individual, as well as questions relating tocitizenship, nationality, and identity. The scopeof potential koseki-related research is extensiveand is relevant for many disciplines includinghistory, sociology, law, ethnography,anthropology, cultural studies, literature andmedia studies, gender and queer studies. Giventhe koseki’s origins in the householdregistration regimes of China and itssubsequent influence on the householdregistration systems of Korea and Taiwanduring the colonial period, the koseki alsoopens the way for comparative studies withinand beyond East Asia.

Koseki has implications for normativity,marginalization, exclusion, social order andindividual rights. Phenomena examined hereinclude issues such as reproduct ivetechnologies, illegitimacy, children of unknownparentage, individuals lacking koseki in Japantoday or in Colonial Korea, statelessness,marriage and ‘same conjugal surname’ (夫婦別姓), same-sex partnerships, legal genderchange, and the intertwinement of family andcitizenship – whether legal, colonial, or sexual.The book also offers an historical perspective

on the development of the koseki system (andthe changing household unit it shapes) and theoutcaste registers of the early modern period,as well as early Meiji hinin fraternities,international marriage, and ways in which thekoseki as an ordering tool inevitably, down totoday, creates chaos and ‘strangers’ and‘undecidables.’

The following revised chapter from the bookexamines the koseki register as the officialledger of citizens (日本国民登録簿) andinterrogates Japanese legal citizenship: to whatextent is citizenship actually based on theJapanese Nationality Law’s principle of jussanguinis (the principle whereby a child’scitizenship follows that of the parent(s), asopposed to jus soli, where citizenship followsplace of birth) when the koseki registerhistorically and structurally is not centered onbloodlines? The chapter proposes analternative principle termed jus koseki, whichstrongly influences Japanese citizenshipbestowal, but also influences Japanese societymore generally at the level of the state, familyand individual. DC and KJK

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The koseki system (戸籍制度) has since earlyMeiji exerted profound influence on theJapanese civil law system. As such, the koseki(戸籍) is highly relevant for understandingmodern Japanese society at the level of thestate, the family, and the individual (see forexample Kawashima 1948; Toshitani 1987b).Earlier Japanese society, too, may fruitfully beanalyzed from the vantage point of the kosekisystem because the history of household-based

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registration as an administrative tool forordering and controlling society began alreadyin the seventh century and became crucial inthe Edo era.

This chapter is an initial examination of howhousehold-based registration shapes modernJapanese society through a principle I proposeto call jus koseki which in Japanese would thenbe koseki shugi (戸籍主義).1Here I specificallyexplore the influence of the koseki system inrelation to Japanese citizenship, which is basedon the nationality law principle of jus sanguinis(血統主義), which means ‘the right of blood’under which the right to citizenship isbestowed according to the citizenship of one'sparent(s).

Jus koseki, then, could translate as ‘the right ofregistered household membership’, meaningthat registration confers certain rights – in thiscase citizenship. This right, or jus, signifiesbroadly that it is reasonable – in fact, that tothe majority of the Japanese it is self-evident –that the identification and ordering of theindividual, the family, and the nation isdetermined through household-basedregistration.

The authoritative manual for koseki officials,specialists and researchers called SystematicEncyclopaedia of Koseki Terminology (Kōzumaa n d T a s h i r o 2 0 0 1 , h e r e a f t e r ‘ t h eencyclopaedia’) relates that the koseki recordsand documents the family relations of thecitizens of Japan. Also, as non-citizens are notrecorded in the koseki and every citizen inprinciple is recorded in the koseki, the kosekiconstitutes a ledger of the citizens of Japan.The principle that every citizen shall be kosekiregistered has existed from the first Koseki Lawof 1871 and continues today (Kōzuma andTashiro 2001: 598).2

The English literature on Japanese nationalityhas neglected to examine the significance ofthe koseki register. Kashiwazaki Chikako’scomparative studies of Japan’s jus sanguinis

(Kashiwazaki 1998a, 1998b) explore how thekoseki system informed the eventual selectionof the jus sanguinis principle. She rightly notesthat the 1899 Nationality Law represented abalance between adopting western law andmaintaining the internal consistency of thehousehold registration system (Kashiwazaki1998a: 286). Further, she argues that thewestern principle of jus sanguinis was chosenbecause it worked well with the koseki system,where ‘children’s names are added to theexisting registry of their parents. This isconducive to jus sanguinis in that one’sinclusion into the membership circle (theaggregate of registries) follows from having aparent who is a member’ (Kashiwazaki 1998a:296). Kashiwazaki also notes that the JapaneseNationality Law includes elements of jus soli(by birth place 出生地主義) and jus domicilis(by residence) (Kashiwazaki 1998: 279). The jusdomicilis principle (住所主義) will be relevant inthe later discussion.

Kashiwazaki’s assertion begs the question,however, to what extent the koseki is conduciveto jus sanguinis when the family system thatkoseki represents does not stress bloodlinewhen it comes to continuing the householdlineage? As Jane Bachnik’s important study onie (家) recruitment strategies concludes:‘although “parents” and “children” do exist inthe ie, its organization is not based on suchrelationships, nor is their existence necessaryfor its continuity. Kinship […] is merely onerecruitment option for the group-definedcontinuity of the ie’ (Bachnik 1983: 178).

The main focus of Kashiwazaki’s study is jussanguinis so the implications of the closerelationship between the koseki and Japanesecitizenship are not explored in more detail.What needs to be asked here is: In what waysand to what degree does the koseki registerinfluence the Japanese citizenship criteria?Indeed, is it relevant, perhaps, to speak of theexistence of a principle of jus koseki thatinfluences the stipulated jus sanguinis?

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A note on terminology is appropriate at thispoint. In Japanese legal parlance, the termkokuseki (国籍) can be translated with theEnglish terms ‘nationality’ and ‘citizenship’,and the term kokumin (国民) refers to theEnglish terms ‘national’ and ‘citizen’. For thesake of a focused discussion, I will herenarrowly follow Andreas Fahrmeir’s definitionof the term citizenship:

“formal citizenship”: the legaldefinition of a close relationshipbetween individuals and one state,usually documented in passports orother citizenship certificates(Fahrmeir 2007: 2).

Here, then, I use the terms ‘kokuseki’ and‘nationality’ (e.g. kokusekihō 国籍法 ,Nationality Law ) to refer to this formalcitizenship, and the terms ‘kokumin’, ‘nation’and ‘nationals’ here simply refer to theaggregate group of Japanese citizens.

The koseki and Japanese nationality

1. Anonymized photo collage of pages 5-7from an 1872 Koseki Book from a villagein Ibaraki Prefecture. The dotted lineindicates the koseki data pertaining to thefamily residing in dwelling number 4. The

family class (zokushō 族称) of ‘peasant’ (nō農) is noted in the third column from theright.

The profound influence of administrativehousehold registration began with theintroduction of the Chinese householdregistration system, which was a central part ofthe Great Reform (Taika) that began in 646.This system was immediately adapted tocontemporary Japanese conditions and aims,and one major result was the reorganization ofthe social order. The Edo period establishedvery early sectarian inspections (shūmōnaratame chō 宗門改長) and censuses (ninbetsuchō 人別帳) that registered the population byhousehold unit. Work on creating a modernhousehold register had already begun in 1868,and in 1871 the new household registration lawemerged in the form of Edict 170. Japanesesociety was once again reshaped through ahousehold register that fused early modernhousehold registration with western law; a typeof civil registration that in the process definedthe citizens of the emerging nation-state ofJapan.

According to Mukai and the pioneering kosekischolar Toshitani Nobuyoshi, this new kosekisystem developed into ‘an indispensableelement in the formation of the underlyingfoundations of the civil law system’ (Mukai andToshitani 1967: 48). In particular, this wasbecause the koseki system and the ‘ko’ unit(「戸」単位) that developed during early Meijiconstitute the matrix for the ‘ie’-type familythat was institutionalized in the 1898 CivilCode (Toshitani 1991: 100–101). The kosekisystem and its ko unit came to profoundlyinfluence the family law sections in the 1899Civil Code and, in turn, the Nationality Law.

The promulgation of the 1899 Nationality Law(kokusekihō), which adopted patrilineal jussanguinis as the basis for citizenshipacquisition, was a central step towardsbecoming a modern nation-state. Yet for almost

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three decades nationality had been determinedvia the koseki register whose main aim wasdelineating family relations. Indeed, theadministrative koseki household, or ‘ko’ unit,that took form between 1871 and 1898 wasprojected into Meiji family law as the ‘ie’ whichwas institutionalized with the simultaneousenforcement of the 1898 Civil Code and the1898 Koseki Law (Toshitani 1991: 101). TheCivil Code’s stipulated ‘ie’ family model was, inturn, materialized on the koseki document viahousehold-submitted notifications. In otherwords, new citizens appeared when they wereincorporated as registered members of an ‘ie’unit (「家」単位) via notifications of birth,marriage, or adoption.

An examination of the modern koseki register isrelevant, then, for three reasons. First, kosekiregistration and citizenship acquisition wereintertwined prior to the 1899 Nationality Law.Second, from 1871 to the present the modernhousehold register has consistently constituteda register of the citizens of Japan (nihonkokumin tōrokubo 日本国民登簿) (Kōzuma andTashiro 2001: 26, 129).3 Third, the registrationof most new citizens occurs at household levelvia birth notifications(shusshō todokeide 出所届出), which means that this registration maytake second place tomore urgent familyformation strategies such as preventing theregistration of an illegitimate child. In short,the koseki register provided the initial basis forcitizenship, it became documentation ofcitizenship, and the koseki system leaves thematter of registering new citizens in the handsof the households.

2. Transliteration of the koseki for thefamily in dwelling 4 in a village in IbarakiPrefecture (pages 5-7 of an 1872 KosekiBook).

This investigation of the relationship betweenthe koseki and citizenship therefore needs toconsider the administrative as well as thesocial, family-related dynamics that surroundthe registration of new citizens.

The koseki system, its functions and itsgeneral principles

Any modern nation-state needs a civilregistration system that collects, records anddocuments individual civil status and civilstatus changes, as well as family relations.4

Such systems in most developed states registerby the unit of the individual, but Japan uses theunit of the administrative household, the ‘ko’unit. The koseki system is also distinguished byconstituting a citizens’ register. This role is

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stipulated in the following representativepassages and articles from the koseki laws of1871, 1899 and 1947:

Edict 170 of 1871, preamble:

Furthermore, it is only under theshelter of the government’sprotection that each and every oneof the people may lead a life insafety. Therefore, those who arenot registered or not countedcannot receive this protection andare as if outside the nation.5

Because of this, the people must belisted in household registers.[Italics added]

The 1898 Koseki Law, article 1706:

A koseki register shall be compiledfor each person who establishes ahonseki within the jurisdiction ofthe koseki registrar. A person whodoes not possess Japanesenationality cannot establish ahonseki.

The 1947 Koseki Law:

A new koseki shall be compiled foreach husband and wife whoestablishes a honseki within thedistrict of the city, town or villageand for their children bearing thesame surname.

However, in the case of a personwho is married to a non-Japaneseindividual (hereafter ‘aliens’) or aperson who does not have aspouse, koseki shall be compiledfor such a person and his or herchi ldren bear ing the same

surname. (art. 6)

A child who takes the surname ofits father and mother shall enterthe koseki of its father and mother.

2. Except for the preceding case, achild who takes the surname of thefather shall enter the koseki of itsfather, and a child who takes thesurname of the mother shall enterthe koseki of its mother.

3. An adopted child shall enter thekoseki of its adoptive parents. (art.18) If a new entry in a koseki is tobe made for a person who is notregistered in a koseki, a newkoseki shall be compiled for theperson, excepting aperson who isto enter the koseki of his father ormother. (art. 22)

The nationwide census that Edict 170proclaimed produced during 1872 kosekiregisters (the so-called jinshin koseki) that inaggregate constituted the initial list of thenationals of Japan. The 1899 Nationality Lawimplied that citizens are those who possess ahonseki (permanent register, 本籍). Further,the 1947 Koseki Law stipulated that childrencould also become listed by ‘entering’ thekoseki of their parents, their father, theirmother or a koseki newly compiled for thatpurpose. It is striking that these koseki laws onnationality do not specify ‘Japanese parentage’but rather ‘koseki entry’ and honsekipossession. I will discuss this in more detaillater. Let us now look closer at the kosekisystem.

The koseki operates according to three generalprinciples. First, it is the duty of the householdto supply data on civil status, civil statuschanges and family relations. Second, the unitof registration is the ‘ko’ unit. Third, the kosekiregisters are in principle publicly accessible so

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as to serve documentation purposes.

In other words, data on birth, marriage,divorce, adoption, dissolution of adoption,death and so on, primarily enter the kosekisystem via notifications that are submitted bythe households in question to the koseki affairsoffice, which in turn enters these data into therelevant koseki document(s). The koseki clerkonly checks whether the notifications arecorrectly filled out. The underlying facts of thenotified matter are not checked and this canopen the way for unwitting acceptance ofcounterfactual notifications. Further, birthnotifications are compulsory. Under the KosekiLaw, they must be submitted within 14 daysfrom the day of birth and a delay incurs a fine.However, a senior koseki registrar at theMatsuyama City Hall related that delays arenot uncommon, and he had never heard ofactual fines.7 He also noted that there is nosystem in place to help the koseki officeidentify unregistered children. The same year,the section chief of the Shinjuku Ward kosekioffice, provided similar answers, but added thatparents would normally be motivated toregister their children when it came time towelfare benefits, school entry, issuance ofpassports, etc.8 In sum, the official registrationof children as citizens depends on household-level cooperation.

The pre-war ko unit, which documented themulti-generational institutional ‘ie’, comprisedthe ‘household head’ (koshu, 戸主) and hisaffiliated ‘household members’ (in koseki-parlance denoted as kazoku, 家族).9 Theposition and the rights of the household head,which was stipulated in the 1898 Civil Code,was not limited to males. Females householdheads, also called onna koshu (女戸主) existed.When, for example a female household headmarried (through the so-called nyūfu, or‘entering husband’-procedure), the husbandbecame a ‘household member’. In thefollowing, I use the pronoun ‘him’ to denote thefigure of the household head for no better

reason that the predominance of male koshu.

3. Nationwide tally based on the datacollected in connection with the 1872Koseki compilation. From Japan WeeklyMail 1874.

The household members were listed in thehousehold head’s koseki subsequent to him andwere identified according to their particularrelationship to the household head (e.g.‘grandmother,’ ‘wife,’ ‘eldest daughter,’‘second brother,’ ‘bride’ [of second brother, forexample], ‘uncle,’ ‘grandchild,’ ‘nephew’). Thehousehold head was responsible for makingnotifications regarding himself and hishousehold members, but notification of births

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had to be made by the child’s father. Therefore,the household head notified the birth of hischildren and each male household membernotified the birth of their children. The entry ofextra-marital children, or hi-chakushutsushi 非嫡出子, though, required the consent of thehousehold head. Extra-marital children weresubcategorized as shoshi 庶民, if acknowledgedby their father, and as shiseiji 私生児 ifunacknowledged.

Under the present postwar koseki system, theko unit is a two-generational unit defined ascomprising a conjugal couple and their childrensharing the same surname (uji, 氏). The dutyto make notifications today lies with therelevant individuals. For notifications ofmarriage, divorce or adoption, for example, theduty is on the parties involved, and for birthnotifications it is on the parents.

Legally, the koseki documents maritalrelations, legitimacy and parent–child relationsfor example. When submitting notifications thatfacilitate the formation of such legal relationsand statuses, the registrants are mindful of thelegal recognition that koseki notificationsimply. However, notifications pertaining tofamily relations and family-related statusesmost likely have emotional and/or strategicmotives as well. For individuals, couples andfamilies, family formation involves affective andrational concerns, and they may outweighconcerns about citizenship. The registration ofa citizen is thus a collateral effect of family-centered decisions pertaining to a new-born.These decisions, in turn, are also informed by aprevailing ‘koseki consciousness’,10 which is aconcern with how one’s family appears to thesurrounding social world (seken, 世間) on theirkoseki document. The three basic kosekiprinciples mentioned earlier are crucial tounderstanding koseki consciousness (fordetails, see Krogness 2008: 181–320).

Firstly, the ko unit principle makes theregistrants perceive themselves as members of

the larger ko unit, rather than as individuals.The ko unit is felt to represent family eventhough it is an administrative construct thatoften does not represent an actual cohabitatingfamily unit. Secondly, under the public accessprinciple, full or partial copies of one’s kosekidocument are issued for documentationpurposes. These copies list data on otherhousehold members as well, and this principlethus instills a sense that one’s background andfamily history are potentially open for all to see.

Thirdly, the notification principle enablesfamilies to shape their ko unit so that itpresents itself positively to seken. Data on onemember reflects on the entire ko unit, soindividual members often make life choices inconsideration of all involved; not only fellow komembers but also the present and futuresurrounding social environment. This includesneighbors, as well as the families or companiesthat oneself or one’s ko unit members interactwith or might one day attempt to join asspouses or workers. Notifications thatcontribute to the project of configuring a kosekithat is perceived favorably by seken havegenerally been pursued, typically avoiding dataitems such as divorce, fatherlessness andextramarital children. Koseki consciousness is,however, also present among individuals, who,in opposition to the hegemonic family modelthat the koseki presents, seek to configurealternative family structures within the kosekimatrix, for example via the bunseki (separationof register, 分籍) notification to mimic a moreindividualized registration (Krogness 2011:85–88).

Koseki and the theory of recognition

The koseki merely records and documentsobjective data, but given koseki consciousness,the registrants see in the koseki the possibilityof improving their standing in their socialenvironment. Consequently, to assess to whatdegree micro-level koseki-related decisionsinfluence citizenship, we need an approach that

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facilitates a comprehensive view of thehousehold register’s variegated and multi-levelworkings, roles and influences. To this end, Iwi l l deploy Axel Honneth’s theory ofrecognition. This theory proposes that socialinteraction is guided by a desire to achieverecognition and avoid the disrespect of others.The full individuation11 of a person requiresrecognition within three spheres: a struggle foremotional recognition within the private sphere(love in mother–child relations, or betweencouples or friends), rational recognition withinthe sphere of law (e.g. legitimacy, legalmarriage, citizenship, human rights), and acombined emotional-rational recognition withinthe organizational sphere (e.g. peers,colleagues, unions, clubs, neighborhoods). Thelatter struggle is both emotional and rational assolidarity represents inter-human relations thatare both affective and regulated (Honneth1998:153ff.; Willig 2003: 7–23).

The koseki system is a medium for legalrecognition, as it records and documentscitizenship, civil status and family relations.The koseki document is also highly relevant inthe organizational sphere, where full or partialcopies of the koseki (the so-called koseki tōhonand koseki shōhon, 戸籍謄本　戸籍抄本) havebeen used in most of the modern periodinformally to present one’s background(mimoto, 身元), for example when seekingschool entry, employment and during marriagenegotiations. It is especially in these socialsettings marked by inclusion and exclusion thatthe phenomenon of ‘koseki consciousness’surfaces.

The koseki’s role is more indirect in the privatesphere, that is to say, in relation to the affectiverelations between couples and in a symbioticmother–child relation, which encompassesemotional and physical expressions. Affectivedisrespect includes deprivation of love andphysical abuse. If inclusion and exclusion in thelegal and organizational spheres contribute toour individuation, then the recognition and

disrespect one experiences there is likely toinfluence to some extent affective recognitionand disrespect in the private sphere. A case inpoint may be the prevalent undesirability ofextramarital children which is reflected in thestatistics. They account for about 2 per cent ofJapanese births annually (Kōseirōdōsho 2006).Specifying and publicising non-legitimacy, thekoseki system arguably internalizes and feedsthese notions.

The pre-war categories of children born out ofwedlock, shoshi and shiseiji, were inscribed inthe pre-war koseki to differentiate children’sinheritance rights. These categories no longerexist, but the tradition of denoting extra-maritalbirth has continued. Under the present post-war system, the birth notification form requiresthe parent(s) to identify their child’s legitimacyon the birth notification form by demarcating itas either an intra-marital child (chakushutsuhi)or extra-marital child (chakushutsu de nai ko).The child’s legitimacy is thus stated clearly onthe birth notification form, but within thekoseki register, this status is stated moreindirectly. Firstly, when listing the names of theparents of an intra-marital child, the firstregistrant (筆頭者) 12 is listed with surnameand personal name (e.g. Tanaka Eiji), whereasthe spouse (usually the mother) is listed withher personal name only (e.g. Mitsuko).13 In caseof an extra-marital birth, each parent is listedwith both surname and personal name (e.g.Endō Kanji and Kawashima Haruko). Second,until 2004 intra-marital children were listed bybirth order (e.g. eldest son, second daughter),whereas extra-marital children were listed withthe characters for ‘man’ or ‘woman’ ( 男 女).Today all children are listed by birth order tomitigate the discriminatory aspect of birth-order listings. Koseki therefore rendersillegitimacy legible for life: within the kosekibecause the names of the parents and the birthorder item are basic status identification itemsthat follow a person from koseki to koseki, andwithin society because koseki is used for formaland informal identification purposes.

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With unmarr ied motherhood h igh lydisapproved of, extra marital children areavoided as it introduces stains of illegitimacy,not only on the register of the mother and thechild, but also on the parental register listingher parents and siblings. Usually daughtersleave their parental koseki due to a marriagenotification, but in case of unmarriedmotherhood, the koseki of her parents (andsiblings) will reveal that she left that registerdue to a birth notification – another indicator ofillegitimacy. The koseki system thus arguablycontributes to the low rate of extramaritalbirths.

Pregnant women who are unable to marry tendto resort to abortion, adoption, non-registrationor even abandonment. While these may be seenas common-sense dispositions given socialcontext, in Honnethian terms they representaffective disrespect. If viewed as strategies toprevent incurring society’s disrespect (upon themother herself, the child, or her parents andsiblings), we see how the general koseki-centered struggle for recognition can result inemotional, organizational, and legal disrespecttoward the chi ld i tself (e.g. physicalconfinement to conceal its existence,14 theability to marry, or to enjoy the right ofcitizenship).

On jus sanguinis and jus koseki

Let us examine the term jus sanguinis. Thelegal scholar George P. Fletcher reminds usthat the English term ‘law’ has two distinctlegal meanings. Law signifies the latin term lex,which refers to ‘statutory law’ (law-as-enacted-law or law-as-power). Law can also invoke thelatin term jus, which is ‘law in a broaderinclusive sense encompassing principles ofjustice’ (law-as-principle or law-as-reason).15

Where lex is purely local, jus is not. The termsjus soli and jus sanguinis, for example, reflectthe not ion that c i t izenship acquiredautomatically at birth due to descent or placeof birth has an intrinsic appeal across states.

While the rationale behind a state’s choice ofone or the other or both principles may differ,their shared underlying principle, the idea ofcitizenship as a birthright, remains the same(Fletcher 2001: 5). Indeed, even the terms‘nation’ and ‘nationality’ reflect the Latin wordfor birth (nacio).

Early on, Aristotle, however, questioned thesuitability of birth as the basis for being acitizen. Examining the city, the central questionwas ‘whom we ought to call Citizen, and who isone’ (Aristotle 1778: 112). Although thecontemporary definition of the citizen was ‘onewho is sprung from Citizens’ (Aristotle 1778:116), Aristotle noted that logically one cannotbe born a citizen when the first of the familycannot prove themselves to be a citizen.Consequently, ‘as a mortar is made by amortar-maker, so a Citizen is made by aCitizen-maker’ (Aristotle 1778: 116). In otherwords, citizenship is not innate; politicianscreate citizens (Stevens 2012: A31).16 However,given the koseki system, we here need toconsider the agency of parents, since theacquisition of Japanese citizenship for mostinvolves a notification of birth.

The simple fact of birth only extends formalmembership in principle. The ‘Citizen-maker’ isthe series of administrative processes that sucha birth triggers. In any state, the apparatusthat facilitates the conferral of individualcitizenship is a complex interaction oflegislation and actors. In Japan conferral ofcitizenship involves the interaction of thesubstantive Nationality Law with theprocedural Household Registration Law(kosekihō, 戸籍法) and the KosekiEnforcementRegulations (Koseki shikō kisoku, 戸籍法施行規則),17as well as actors such as parentsandregistrars. Under the Nationality Law a childwith Japanese parents is a Japanese national,but for its registration as such, the ‘Citizen-maker’ is the child’s parents who carry out thebirth notification, and the koseki registrationprocedures, which record the new citizen. At

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the core of jus koseki as a nationality principle,then, is the birth notification and the kosekiregistration. Let us begin elaborating jus kosekiby looking at the koseki system that emergedbetween 1871 and 1898.

In general, the pre-war koshu controlled thepositions in his household through the ‘right ofthe household head’ (koshu-ken 戸主権) whichwas stipulated in the Civil Code. As mentioned,the koshu had to approve, and could thus deny,an extra-marital child’s entry into his register.Also marriages had to be approved by thehousehold head. The notification of a marriagewas therefore not so much a question of aunion of two individuals as it was a question ofthe household head deeming the ‘bride’ eligibleto that status position within his ko unit(Fukushima 1959a: 67). The household headcould deny and bestow those and otherhousehold positions as he saw fit.

With the postwar abolition of the right of thehousehold head, the notification of statuschanges are today in the hands of theindividuals involved. Parents mind thenotifications pertaining to themselves and theirminor children, and their adult sons anddaughters are free to submit notifications ofmarriage, birth, adoption, etc. The notificationof birth is mandatory, but as we will see below,parents appear to have de facto autonomy interms of the power to deny a child a registeredhousehold position by not submitting a birthnotification. Whether for personal reasons orfor the sake of the household, this non-notification jeopardizes the child’s right tocitizenship. Similar to the pre-war koshu, then,koseki registrants today can control thehousehold positions of incoming members.

The bestowal and denial of household positionshas thus since early Meiji reflected an on-going,three-tiered struggle for recognition. The‘principle’ or ‘reason’ of jus koseki is, at thispoint, the right that derives from registeredhousehold membership. For a child, it is the

individual rights it acquires by becomingregistered. For existing registrants, who enjoythese individual rights, it is also the ability tocontrol access to their particular register.Under jus koseki, then, the state allows thehousehold to be a de facto gateway toregistered citizenship.

To further examine the koseki’s influence onJapanese nationality, I will examine Edict 170of 1871 which introduced the modern kosekisystem in 1871, Edict 103 of 1873 whichstipulated nationality for foreigners whomarried into Japanese households, and theNationality Laws of 1899 and 1950 whichadhere to jus sanguinis. Finally, via cases ofunregistered children from the late 2000s, Iwill examine how and why the administrativehousehold can constitute a barrier to registeredcitizenship.

Edict 170 of 1871: defining the originalnationals of Japan

Between 1871 and 1899, legislation on thenationality of the Japanese was attended to in aquick, provisional and piecemeal manner. Theentire population of Japan became Japanesenationals simply based on being residents,whereas the nationality of foreigners whojoined, married or were adopted into Japanesehouseholds was determined by positive law(Tashiro 1974: 54–56). Edict 170 nationalizedthe former and Edict 103 extended nationalityto the latter.

Edict 17018 was not a nationality law, yet thepreamble indicated that those who wereregistered were nationals (kokumin). This edictand the nationwide koseki compilation processit ordered to take place during 1872 thusconstitute Japan’s initial ‘Citizen-maker’. As theobject of registration was everyone livingwithin the territories of Japan,19 the basis forthis initial conferral of nationality wastherefore essentially residence.

According to Tashiro Aritsugu,20 Edict 170

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brought early modern membership criteria intothe modern period. Tashiro (1974), entitled AnArticle by Article Commentary on theNationality Law, is the authoritative volume onJapanese Nationality Law. He explains thatmembership in early modern Japan wasgoverned by certain unwritten legal principlescentered on the idea that residents andnationals were identical (jūsho=kokuseki(jūmin=kokumin) dōitsushisō, 住所＝国籍（住民＝国民）同一思想). Residence (jūsho) wasnationality (kokuseki), and residents(jūmin)were nationals (kokumin) (Tashiro1974:55). In other words, this initial nationalityprinciple appears to be a type of jus domicilis.

Echoing Aristotle, Tashiro notes that the jussanguinis of the 1889 Nationality Law cannotspecify who the ‘original Japanese nationals’(ganso nihonjin元祖日本人) were. According toTashiro, the original Japanese that existedimmediately prior to the enforcement of the1899 Nationality Law were those who werenationals prior to its enforcement and theyemerged from the residents-as-nationals idea(Tashiro 1974: 53–54). In other words, theoriginal Japanese prior to 1899 were the kosekiregistrants.

In the Edo period, the smallest unit ofregistration was the village. Residenceconstituted membership of a village and thiswas certified via household registration. Thisregistration differentiated between statusgroups and, because movement between thesegroups was all but impossible, group statusmembership was in effect acquired at birth.Residence was not a birthright, though, giventhe punishment of deregistration (Mori2014:65-73). Similarly, nationality has, afterEdict 170’s initial nationwide compilation ofkoseki registers, also in effect been acquired atbirth, as the birth of every new-born is inprinciple to be recorded, making themregistered household members.

Edict 170 introduced a written notification

system which originated in the Edo period’ssystem of oral notification (Ishii 1981: 44).Edict 170 also introduced a new official calledthe kochō (household chief, 戸長), who wascharged with compiling the koseki registers. Akochō was to be appointed in each village andward, and he, in turn, relied on the heads ofeach village household to prepare and submitthe required data.21 After the initial compilationof koseki, the household heads would submitwritten notifications (e.g. birth notifications) tothe kochō so as to update the registers.According to Toshitani, this marks thebeginnings of the authority of the householdhead (koshuken, 戸主権) (Toshitani 1987a:50–51).

By relying on the koshu to manage hishousehold and supply accurate information, thestate in effect installed an official in everyhousehold. These household heads were,however, apt to alter household data to servethe interests of their households (Fukushima1959a: 49). The koshu’s authority to report theconditions of his particular household alsoenabled him to evade state authority. WithEdict 170, marriage and adoption becameadministrative events and family hierarchiesand relations transformed into administrativekoseki positions. Holders of the administrativepositions of ‘household head’ and ‘eldest son’were exempt from military service in earlyMeiji and such positions were easily createdthrough notifications – especially if the localkochō looked the other way. The aim of thenotification system was to facilitate collectionof objective data on the actual status relationsof the Japanese people, yet this very systemalso enabled individual households to advancehousehold interests (Toshitani 1987b: 146–47).

Edict 103 of 1873: the family system andnationality

It was also necessary to define Japanesenationality in terms of foreigners who marriedor were adopted into Japanese families, but the

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residence-as-nationality principle was notapplied to foreigners who took up residency(Tashiro 1974:55–56, 58). Stipulatingacquisition and loss of nationality in terms ofmarriage and adoption involving a foreignerand a Japanese national, Edict 103 of 1873 isthe first example of a preliminary positive lawo n n a t i o n a l i t y ( T a s h i r o 1 9 7 4 :58–59).22Legislation on the nationality of theJapanese as such did not appear until Japan’s1899 Nationality Law.

Kidana Shōichi (2003) sums up Edict 103’sthree main points.First, it represented strictcontrol over nationality as marriages between aforeigner and a Japanese national required thestate’s approval (art. 1), but also a softapproach to nationality as it permitted changeof nationality as a result of marriage. Second,like other early Meiji legislation, Edict 103adopted French law; in this case the FrenchCode Civil’s principle of same conjugalcitizenship under which female spousesautomatically acquire citizenship of thehusband. Third, it paid particular attention tothe Japanese family system by includingstipulations on adoptive sons-in-law, the so-called mukoyōshi (婿養子) (Kidana 2003: 27).Let us first look at the stipulations on marriage.

Edict 103 stipulated that marriages betweenforeigners and Japanese nationals entailed theacquisition of Japanese citizenship for foreignwomen marrying Japanese men (art. 3) and theloss of Japanese nationality for Japanesewomen who married foreign men (art. 2). Inthis, Edict 103 was consistent with theprevalent principle in contemporary Europe asseen in the Code Civil where spouses share thesame nationality (i.e. the nationality of thehusband).

Edict 103 did not address the citizenship ofchildren that spring from such marriages, yetTashiro (1974) argues that since the edictfollows the principle of conjugal couplessharing nationality it is implied that the

nationality of the child shall also follow that ofthe parents. This, in turn, is where Tashiro seesthe first stirrings of the later selection of theprinciple of jus sanguinis over jus soli. Tashiroalso notes that the basis for nationality at thisstage is bifurcated: the residence-as-nationalityidea underlies the nationality of the generalJapanese population, whereas for residentforeigners nationality has become anadministrative civil status event. For thisreason, Edict 103 can be interpreted as a kindof naturalization policy (Tashiro 1974: 59–60).

In terms of the nationality of women who marryforeign nationals, Edict 103 is clearly inharmony with the prevalent Europeanlegislation. Yet, as Kamoto notes, this edict isan anomaly in the context of contemporarywestern nationality law, as it stipulates theacquisition of citizenship by a foreigner whoenters a Japanese household as a mukoyōshi, oradoptive son- in- law (art . 6) (Kamoto2014:84-85).

Tashiro’s discussion of Edict 103 focuses on itsWestern jus sanguinis aspects. I think,however, it is important also to consider Edict103 in light of the Japanese family system’straditions of mukoyōshi and yome (嫁).

Mukoyōshi refers to the adoption of a male by ahousehold head and hiswife who lack a maleheir to continue the family or house (ie) line.Upon adoption, the male adoptee will at somepoint marry a daughter of the house andeventually succeed to the position of householdhead. As such, the mukoyōshi traditionrepresents a cornerstone in the Japanese familysystem. Another entrenched aspect of thefamily system is that the bride (yome) uponmarriage typically enters the household of thehusband.

When a mukoyōshi or a yome enters a house,he or she will partake in the collectiveidentifiers of the house. Under Edict 170 thesecollective administrative data items includedthe name of the shrine of which they are

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parishioners (ujiko, 氏子) and their shared‘family class’ (zokushō, 族称), an entry thattoday is erased in all pre-war registers toprotect the privacy of the buraku population.23

Edict 170 also introduced the collectiveidentifier of ‘Japanese nationality’ and from thisperspective, Edict 103 merely states thatforeigners who enter a ko unit as a bride or asan adoptive son-in-law shall, like every existingkoseki registrant, share the common signifier ofJapanese nationality.

In this sense, Edict 103 appears to have beendesigned to work with the two nationalityschemata that the early Meiji state wasprimarily concerned with: the koseki registerand the French Code Civil. Functional with theWestern system of nationality law, Edict 103satisfies positive law and Japan’s existingfamily system. Edict 103 was able to reflect theEuropean principle that conjugal couples sharethe same nationality without conflicting withthe new koseki-based order laid down by Edict170, which now administratively structured thisfamily system.

The principles within Edict 103, whichessentially regulated changes in nationalitystatus through Japan’s existing marriage andadoption practices, were incorporatedpractically unaltered in the later 1899Nationality Law, article 5 (Kashiwazaki 1998a:286). They were, however, abolished with the1950 Nationality Law.

The Government Section (GS) of the SupremeCommander for the Allied Powers (SCAP)sought through legal reforms to implement theintent of the postwar Constitution in terms ofsecuring the dignity of the individual. The GS’sview on the koseki system was as follows:‘Implementation of the new Constitution andCivil Code of Japan necessitated the removal ofall objectionable power, influence, obligations,and feudalistic ramifications of the long-establ ished house (Koseki ) system’(Government Section 1949: 217). As a result,

the revised Civil Code and Koseki Law of 1947emerged, replacing the institutional ‘ie’ withthe two-generational conjugal unit,24 and thekoshu with the first registrant or hittōsha–theperson whose surname ischosen to index theconjugal ko unit (see also footnote 12).

Alfred C. Oppler, who was the SCAP’s authorityon the postwar legal reforms, found that the1899 Nationality Law represented the ‘attitudeengendered by the house system and theresulting superiority of the male’ (Oppler 1976:152). To secure the right to choose one’scitizenship, the superior position of the malewas abolished and as a result the citizenship ofwives and (adoptive) children ceased to followthat of the husband or (adoptive) father (Oppler1976: 152–53).25 The abolition of the familysystem element meant, however, that foreignspouses today cannot be listed in the koseki oftheir Japanese spouse and children unless theygo through the process of naturalization.

The principle of naturalization throughmarriage and adoption also facilitated transferbetween the two-tiered naichi (内地)and gaichi(外地) Japanese citizenships that emerged inthe colonial period. The colonial koseki thusresembled the Japanese family model, but alsorepresented an expansion of the ‘residence asnationality’ principle through the two-tierednaichi and gaichi honseki system.

Honseki is today a central koseki index, butfrom 1871 to 1898, koseki documents wereindexed by address (and by the full name of thekoshu). With the 1898 Koseki Law the addressindex changed to the conceptual honseki indexwhich specifies an administrative subdivision ofthe territories of Japan. Fundamentallyindicating the jurisdiction where the kosekidocument in question is managed and stored,the honseki is not an address,26 as only kosekiregistrants possess an administrative honsekilocation.27 Hence the Koseki Laws’ nationality-related focus on honseki and koseki entry.

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Japanese nationals, then, ‘reside’ within ararefied, virtual realm of Japanese territory thatis only accessible through administrative kosekiregistration: an administrative territory ofJapan that comprises the totality of honsekiareas (Krogness 2004: 44; Krogness 2008:222), and which are accessed throughnotifications of birth, marriage, and adoption.We might say that the principle of residence-as-nationality became honseki-residence-as-nationality. For example, a honseki on adriver’s license reveals that the holder is aJapanese national.

4. An example of emotional attachment tothe honseki location. A photo of ShínaRingo and her band Tokyo Jihen atShinjuku Tower Records with a dedicationto her fans which begins: “Hello, myhonseki area” (Hello, 私の本籍地!). By‘honseki area’, she most likely meanswhere she belongs emotionally (e.g.‘hometown’), rather than the actualhonseki of her koseki, which could well beelsewhere. Born in Saitama and raised inFukuoka, she calls herself ”a descendant ofShinjuku who performs in my own drama.

The honseki residence as nationality principlemay thus inform our understanding of thedifferentiated nationalities along naichi/gaichilines that emerged in the colonial era (see alsoChapman 2014 and Kamoto 2014). Nationality

under colonialism mirrors the principlesunderlying nationality discussed earlier: Thegaichihonseki provided a gaichi Japanesenationality. Simple marriage and adoptionfacilitated movement between naichi and gaichiregisters, producing naichi or gaichinationalities depending on the honseki of theko unit one entered. Within this logic, Japan’spost-defeat loss of the gaichi territories wouldmean the loss of gaichi nationality because itsgaichihonseki basis vanished (Krogness 2004:54–61; Krogness 2008: 225).28 At a stroke,Japan’s colonial citizens lost Japanesecitizenship, including those from Korea andTaiwan living in Japan

The nationality law of Japan of 1899:Koseki and Jus Sanguinis

The jus sanguinis principle for nationalitybestowal is found in the 1899 Nationality Law,article 1, and the 1950 Nationality Law, article2, which stipulate that a child is a Japanesecitizen if: 1) the father or the mother is acitizen at the time of the birth, or 2) the fatherof the child died prior to the birth and was acitizen at the time of death. To understandconcretely the registration of children whofulfill the jus sanguinis principle, we shallconsult the koseki encyclopaedia.

The notification of birth

Kōzuma and Tashiro (2001) specify that theregistration of a newborn as a citizen occurswith the notification of its birth as it constitutesthe initial record and documentation ofindividual legal rights, including the right ofcitizenship. The koseki document constitutesofficial proof of citizenship and it is generallypresumed that individuals whose births havebeen notified are citizens, but this does notmean that individuals registered in kosekinecessarily are citizens and that thoseindividuals who are not registered are notcitizens. It can happen that a non-citizen iskoseki registered and that a citizen lacks kosekiregistration (Kōzuma and Tashiro 2001:266).

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False koseki registration of non-citizens ispossible because koseki registrations are basedon notifications and the koseki official onlychecks the contents of a notification formally interms of the form being filled out correctly. Theexamination of the birth notification does notextend to checking whether or not the personin question fulfills the Nationality Law’srequirements for citizenship acquisition or loss.Failure to make a birth notification, on theother hand, means that not all citizens areregistered in koseki. The koseki system hasnumerous safeguards to assure that kokusekiand the koseki are congruent, but in realityincongruities do occur (Kōzuma and Tashiro2001: 132–33). In sum, thekoseki is unlikelyactually to register all births that fulfill thestipulated jus sanguinis principle, and onlysuch births.

Mere koseki registration, moreover, does nothave the effect of conferring citizenshipbecause citizenship is determined by theNationality Law (Kōzuma and Tashiro 2001:266), yet the encyclopaedia also stresses theimportance of preventing the kosekiregistrat ion of non-ci t izens. I f suchcounterfactual koseki registrations remainundiscovered for a long period of time, therewil l be a point where they have to beconsidered factual (Kōzuma and Tashiro 2001:26–27). While the koseki just infers Japanesecitizenship, after a certain number of yearsthey become ‘old koseki’ (古い戸籍) thatconfirm Japanese citizenship. Old koseki are inprinciple koseki that are more than threegenerations old, at which point they must beconsidered documentation confirming Japanesecitizenship. The term ‘old koseki’, though, doesnot signify a specific age. Rather, the termsignifies ‘koseki where the basis for disprovalof citizenship has perished’ (Tashiro 1974: 13).In general, however, the koseki is nothing morethan preliminary documentation of acquisitionor loss of Japanese citizenship. Separateindividual and concrete proof of the conditionsfor such acquisition or loss may also be

required (Kidana 2003: 56–58).

In sum, koseki merely records and documentscitizenship, yet it can effectively accesscitizenship, too. The encyclopaedia casts somelight on this contradiction by highlighting thisinteresting dichotomy between the roles of theNationality Law’s jus sanguinis and the kosekisystem. As a record of citizens, the koseki’s roledepends on the Nationality Law since theregistrations must be based on the principle jussanguinis. Here kokuseki constitutes the basis(moto 本) and koseki merely the result (sue末). However, to ascertain the Japanesecitizenship of the parent(s) of a newborn, theNationality Law’s principle of jus sanguinisdepends on confirmation by way of their kosekiregistrations. In this case, ‘kokuseki’ dependson ‘koseki’– here koseki is ‘primary’ andkokuseki is ‘secondary.’ In terms of substantivelaw kokuseki is the basis, yet in terms ofprocedural law the koseki precedes as‘primary’ (Kōzuma and Tashiro 2001: 27).

To illustrate how koseki notifications give thekoseki a primary role over kokuseki and howthe struggle of recognition can lead to non-notification of births, let us look at some casesfrom 2007 and 2008.

Mukosekisha and nationality

From late 2006, there emerged a spate of newsreports on children who had never been kosekiregistered, despite being citizens under the jussanguin is pr inc ip le . These cases o fmukosekisha (無戸籍者) shed important lighton the koseki system’s role vis-à-vis citizenship.

In late 2006 a 16-year-old high school studentapplied for a passport in preparation for a 2007school trip. Her application was turned downon 16 January because it did not include akoseki shōhon as proof of citizenship. She wasunable to supply the required koseki copybecause her mother had never registered herbirth. A victim of domestic violence and unableto secure a divorce, the mother had fled her

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former husband with the help of a man withwhom she thereafter had a child – the highschool student in question. The following year,the mother got divorced, but the birth of thedaughter fell under Article 722 of the CivilCode, which stipulates that the former husbandis the legal father of a child who is born within300 days of a divorce. As a result, the kosekiofficials did not accept the birth notification,which specified the surname of the mother’smale partner. When the high school studentapplied for the passport in late 2006, she, herparents and a support group29 attempted tosubmit to the passport office the documentsnecessary to make a koseki registration,including the hospital-issued birth certificate.These documents were not accepted. Therepresentative of the support group stated thatit was unreasonable that the circumstances ofthe mother should limit the daughter’s humanrights and her right to go overseas (MainichiShinbun 2006; asahi.com 2007a, 2007b).

The leading scholar on koseki and family lawNinomiya Shūhei has pointedout that thecentral problem in the above case was thekoseki’s role as proof of citizenship: ‘The kosekiis just a means to document one’s citizenshipand family relations, so to make the koseki anabsolute requirement [for getting a passport] isto put the cart before the horse’ (MainichiShinbun 2006). In other words, this caseexemplifies the aforementioned contradictionsthat exist between the jus sanguinis and thekoseki in terms of their relative primacy inrelation to bestowal of nationality. Not only isthe koseki system inadequate for securing theregistration of all citizens, but the stateadministration appears to prioritise the kosekiregister over the hospital-issued birthcertificate which should be the most suitableproof in terms of jus sanguinis.

Another case was reported on 20 May 2008 bymainichi.jp. A 27-year-old mukosekisha gavebirth to a child who as a consequence became a‘second-generation un-koseki registered’

(mukoseki nisei, 無戸籍二世). The mother was,as un-koseki registered, unable to submit abirth notification and had, incidentally, for thatsame reason also been unable to submit amarriage notification the previous summer.This unregistered mother’s lack of kosekir e g i s t r a t i o n w a s a l s o d u e t o t h eabovementioned ‘300-day rule’ and domesticviolence. Her mother (aged 50) had refrainedfrom making a birth notification for fear ofa ler t ing her former husband o f herwhereabouts (mainichi. jp 2008).

Interestingly, on 11 June 2008 the Ministry ofJustice allowed the 27-year-old’s child to beregistered in the koseki ‘in consideration of hisfuture’. The ministry did not, however, takesteps to resolve his mother’s unregisteredstatus (asahi. com 2008a, 2008b).

An administrative change addressing themukoseki issue occurred with the revision inJune 2007 of the Passport Law EnforcementRegulations. This led the Foreign Ministry(Gaimushō, 外務省)to issue for the first time on2 September 2008passports to two mukosekipersons: a woman (aged 24) from OsakaPrefecture and a boy (aged 1) from Tokyo. Bothwere unregistered due to article 722 of theCivil Code. The revision facilitated issuingpassports to mukoseki persons if they meetcertain conditions, among these that ‘a trueparent–child relationship has been or is beingestablished through due procedures in a courtof law’ (Daily Yomiuri Online 2008; YomiuriOnline 2008).

In other words, this revision of Passport LawEnforcement Regulations stresses the need toprove that the individuals in question fulfill thenationality principle of jus sanguinis. Thiscontrasts greatly with the state’s laissez-faireapproach to the general koseki-basedregistration of citizens, which neither activelyensures that all children of Japanese parentageare registered as citizens, nor appears veryinterested in helping individuals who lack

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koseki registration. In short, the state seemsfundamentally content with leaving the matterof koseki registration – even citizenship – in thehands of each individual family. The case of theJapanese orphans and women who were leftbehind in China (zanryū koji/fujin, 残留孤児・婦人), whose reacquisition of Japanesecitizenship in the early nineteen eighties wasleft in the hands of their Japanese families,provides a similar example (see also Tong andAsano 2014). A central proposition of Krogness(2004), which studies the zanryū koji/fujininrelation to the koseki, is that it is but anexample of how the Japanese state relies on thekoseki system to ensure a family-levelintegration of citizens, so as to maintain adesired order of mutual surveillance andobligation (Krogness 2004: 70–71), which goesback to the ancient registers of China, Koreaand Japan and is the fundamental feature of juskoseki.

These cases illustrate that citizenship is notnecessarily among a mother’s primary motivesfor notifying a birth. Here the primary motivesare informed by the struggle to achieverecognition and avoid disrespect. These casesreveal state disrespect of individual rightsexpressed in the denial of passport due to lackof koseki copy, in the refusal to accept birthcertificates listing the biological father (due toArticle 722), in helping the child but not hismother to achieve koseki registration, in notpermitting an un-koseki registered woman toenter into legal marriage, and, surely, inforcing a former husband to have anotherman’s child listed in his koseki as his own (dueto Article 722). Further, there is the crucialstruggle of the mothers to avoid the physicaldisrespect that their husbands have inflictedthrough domestic violence. Fundamentally,these cases show that these mothers’ non-registration of their children disrespects thesechildren’s individual rights, but their disrespectis a collateral result of their more keenly feltneed to evade the disrespect of domesticviolence and Article 722.

General and specific aspects of jus koseki

The general aspects of jus koseki – whichinfluences Japanese society beyond thequestion of legal citizenship – are the followingfour basic principles of koseki registration:

Scope of registration: the citizens of1.Japan.T h e u n i t o f r e g i s t r a t i o n : t h e2.administrative household. Everyhousehold member shares the samekoseki for individual documentationpurposes. The data on one personreflects on each member and the entirehousehold.The registration of data: it is the duty of3.the administrative household itself tonotify the all individual civil statuschanges and events to koseki office. Eachhousehold member submits notificationsthat pertain to themselves (e.g. theparent notifies the birth of his or herchild, the adopting parent notifies theadoption of a child, and the couple inquestion notifies their marriage ordivorce). The koseki office acceptscorrectly filled-out notification, but doesnot verify the basis for the status change.Access to registered data: as the koseki4.s e r v e s a s J a p a n ’ s s y s t e m f o rdocumenting the individual, the kosekiregisters remain in principle publiclyaccessible. The koseki office provides, fora fee, full or partial copies of koseki uponrequest. (Access to koseki copies haveonly very gradually been limited,beginning in the late 1960s. Not until2008 did i t become required foreveryone, including the person inquestion, to show ID when requesting akoseki copy at the municipal kosekioffices.)

The koseki is quite different from the individualcivil status registers in most Western states,which tend to register all legal residents

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regardless of nationality by the unit of theindividual, largely collect data via state andpublic institutions, and in principle treats thatprivate data as inaccessible to third parties.

In general, the above four principles makeskoseki registrants identify the unit with thekoseki as family and legal citizenship, that onemember’s data reflects on the entire householdunit, that the data is potentially accessible tothe surrounding society, and that data thatenters one’s koseki should be carefully curated.

More specifically in terms of Japanese legalcitizenship, jus koseki is not that conducive tojus sanguinis and has more affinity with jusdomicilis. Jus koseki utilizes the koseki asdocumentation for citizenship, which requiresthe bestowal of a household position. Such aposition is fundamentally granted subjectivelybecause parents are mainly concerned withfamily formation - not citizenship. Further, thissubjective allocation of registered householdmembership is facilitated by the four basickoseki principles. Finally, under jus koseki theright to citizenship is not secured adequatelydue to the state’s principled reluctance tointerfere withhousehold dispositions, and the koseki’ssystemic failure to enforcebirth notifications.

Jus koseki’s influence extends beyond thequestion of birth and citizenship to other lifeevents, such as marriage, divorce, adoption,dissolution of adoption, legal gender change,illegitimacy, surname, locale (due to honseki),as well as population groups, such as theunregistered, foreign residents, minorities,gender relations, etc.

Conclusion

As a ledger of the citizens of Japan, the kosekihas significantly influenced Japanesenationality from 1872 until today. In this rolethe koseki system discreetly envelops, as itwere, the jus sanguinis principle of the

Nationality Law. The principle of jus koseki istherefore proposed here to account moreprecisely for the character of Japanesenationality.

One aspect of jus koseki is that the kosekisystem fundamentally documents nationalityafter the principle of residence-as-membership,which was also central for determiningmembership in the Edo period. From theperspective of residence-as-nationality,documentation of nationality was thus in earlyMeiji centered in the household addressdesignated in the koseki document that onewas registered in. From 1898, documentationof nationality became centered on theadministrative honseki location that todayindexes each koseki document. Jus koseki isthus a type of jus domicilis where residencerequires registered membership of theadministrative household, or ko unit and isdenoted by honseki.

Another aspect of jus koseki is that the state viathe koseki system delegates the officialregistration of citizens to the households. Thisoccurs because a child, who is a citizen underjus sanguinis, is registered as such via itsparents’ notification of its birth. However, thisreliance on birth notifications fails to safeguardthe child’s right to be registered as a citizen. Inpart, this is because the primary motive for theparents’ notification of a birth is not citizenshipregistration but rather the establishment ofparent–child relations. But more fundamentally,children’s rights to citizenship is inadequatelyprotected, partly because of systemicinadequacies in the koseki system and partlybecause of the state’s apparent reluctance tointerfere with household-level kosekidispositions.

The Japanese state’s disinclination to interferein koseki registration matters, and the kosekisystem’s de facto reliance on trust in terms ofbirth notification submissions, can beinterpreted as a remnant of the Meiji-era

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control of the population through the authorityof the household head (whom kosekiresearchers in the 1950’s likened to a familylevel state bureaucrat). Registration within thekoseki system documents fundamentalindividual rights, but given this system’slaissez-faire character, the state appears toprioritize the household unit the kosekiproduces over securing the rights of itsregistered individuals.

Looking beyond nationality specifically, Ipropose that jus koseki is fundamentally anordering principle wherein a larger social orderemanates from a general ly acceptedadministrative micro-level ordering of thepopulation into administrative household units.Largely responsible for their own registrationsand with minimal state interference, familygroups and individuals engage in a struggle forlegal, social, and emotional recognition as theystrive to configure the family they envisionwi th in the parameters o f the g ivenadministrative ko unit matrix.

Deeply influential at the level of the state, thefamily, and the individual, jus koseki should befurther articulated so that we can bettergrapple with ‘koseki Japan.’

Karl Jakob Krogness is an affil iatedresearcher at the Nordic Institute of AsianStudies, University of Copenhagen. His PhDdissertation (University of Copenhagen) is thefirst thorough study of the modern koseki’shistory and development, structure andfunction, and its social role within modernJapanese society. Subsequent research hasexamined the individual, the family, and thepopulation along koseki lines. Future researchinterests include comparative studies of thehousehold registration systems of theneighboring East Asian states. Other researchinterests are the civilian colonization policiesregarding Manchukuo (e.g. the Giyūtai/YouthCorps), as well as the policies that shaped thereturn migration of China of the Japanese ‘War

Orphans’ (Chūgoku zanryū hōjin) to Japan. Thisarticle draws on and adapts material from KarlJakob Krogness and David Chapman, eds.,Japan’s Household Registration System andCitizenship: Koseki, Identification andD o c u m e n t a t i o n(http://amzn.com/0415705444/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), London: Routledge, 2014. E-mail(https://apjjf.org/mailto:karljakob@gmail.com)

Recommended citation: Karl Jakob Krogness,"Jus Koseki: Household registration andJapanese citizenship," The Asia-Pacific Journal,Vol. 12, Issue 35, No. 1, September 1, 2014.

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Notes

1 The idea of jus koseki stems from Krogness(2004), which examines the crucial role thekoseki and honseki had in relation to thezanryū koji’s reacquisition of Japanesecitizenship.

2 1871 Koseki Law, preamble, art. 1 (DajōkanEdict No. 170 of 4 April); 1898 Koseki Law, art.170.2 (Law No. 12 of 15 June); 1914 KosekiLaw, art. 44 (Law No. 26 of 30 March); 1947(current) Koseki Law, art. 6, 18, 22 (Law No.224 of 22 December).

3 The koseki serves domestic purposes (seeKamoto 2014), and for this reason the so-calledcitizen certificate (kokuseki shōmeishō) isissued to document Japanese citizenship

outside of Japan. Issuance of this certificaterequires, however, a copy of one’s koseki asproof of citizenship (Tashiro 1974: 14–15).

4 The United Nations Statistical Division definescivil registration in this way: ‘Civil registrationis a state-run public institution that serves bothgeneral and individual interests by gathering,screening, documenting, filing, safekeeping,correcting, updating and certifying withrespect to the occurrence of vital events andtheir characteristics as they relate to the civilstatus of individuals and as they affect themand their families, and by providing the official,permanent record of their existence, identity,and personal and family circumstances. Itspurpose is therefore to store, preserve andretrieve information on vital events wheneverneeded for legal, administrative, statistical orany other purposes. Civil registrationsometimes plays a role in the creation ofcertain civil status records, a case in pointbeing civil marriage ceremonies. Aggregatecivil registration data produce continuous vitalstatistics’ (United Nations Statistical Division1998: 9).

5 [ … ] kokumin no soto taru ni chikashi. […]国民ノ外タルニ近シ

6 The 1914 Koseki Law’s corresponding article44 is practically identical.

7 Interview conducted with koseki registrarSatō Ken'ichi of the Matsuyama City Hall’s CivilDivision (shiminka), 13 September 2005.(Pseudonym used for privacy reasons.)

8 Interview conducted with the chief clerk ofkoseki registration, Nakano Akio, 12 December2006.

9 The majority of household heads were male,but that position was open for females, too.Female household heads are referred to asonna koshu (女戸主).

10 For more on the phenomenon of koseki

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consciousness, see Kawashima (1948),Yamanushi (1962), Toshitani (1987b) andKrogness (2013). Ninomiya (2014) alsodiscusses this phenomenon using the term‘koseki feelings’.

11 Individuation refers to the ontogenericdevelopment of becoming an individual.

12 Marriage notification requires that the couplechoose one of their surnames as their sharedconjugal surname, which will index their kosekiregister. The person whose surname is chosenis listed first and hence becomes the ‘firstregistrant’. Couples are free to choose betweenthe surnames of the husband and wife.

13 Ninomiya (1999:8-9) suggests that thisadministrative convention is most likely whyNew Year cards similarly present the full nameof the husband and just the personal name ofthe wife.

14 One example of non-registration of birth andphysical disrespect is the Sugamo Incident (fordetails see Kanematsu, Fukushima et al. 1989:v-vi, 91–151). The case is also presented inmore poetic and fictionalized form in Kore-edaHirokazu’s movie Daremo Shiranai (Englishtitle, Nobody Knows).

15 German and French, for example, make thisdistinction, using for the former meaning theterms Gesetz and loi, and for the lattermeaning the terms Recht and droit.

16 This passage on Aristotle is inspired by a2012 New York Times opinion piece by thepolitical scientist Jacqueline Stevens.

17 ShihōshōOrder No. 94 of 29 December 1947.

18 For details on the emergence and structureof Edict 170, see Fukushima (1959b), orKrogness (2008: 90–92) for a brief overview.

19 Kashiwazaki (1998a: 293) reminds us thatinitial internal inclusiveness regarding

citizenship is a rather generic feature of statebuilding.

20 Having served in various capacities at theMinistry of Justice’s Civil Affairs Bureau(Minjikyoku), which is in charge of the kosekisystem, and at the Ministry of Justice’sRegional Legal Affairs Bureau (Hōmukyoku),the legal scholar, administrator, professor andlawyer Tashiro Aritsugu (born 1928) is al ead ing au thor i t y on the l ega l andadministrative aspects of the koseki system.Kidana Shō ichi acknowledges the importanceof Tashiro’s 1974 volume in his follow-upvolume Nationality Law: With Item-by-ItemAnnotations (Kidana 2003: 1).

21 The state intended the kochō position to beheld by new government administrators, but itproved difficult to prevent existing villageleaders from stepping into this position in mostcommunities. For a detailed case study on thecompilation process of the 1872 (jinshin) kosekiand the issue of the kochō, see Toshitani(1987a).

22 It should be noted that Edict 103 does notuse the term kokumin, but rather the phrasenihonjin-taru no bungen: ‘the status of beingJapanese’. (See Kamoto, this volume for moredetails on Edict 103.) For a German translationof Edict 103 see Tomson (1971: 227–28.)

2 3 The 1872 Koseki required that eachadministrative household be identified byfamily class (zokusho). Encompassingcategories such as nobility (kazoku), samurai(shizoku), lower samurai (sotsu), peasant (nō),artisan (kō), and merchant (shō), the familyclass item obviously perpetuated the statuspattern of Edo era society. But where the statussystem of the Edo era divided the populationvia status-specific registration systems (e.g.ninbetsuchō, and separate registers forshizoku, sotsu, temple and shrine populations(jishaseki), and eta/hinin), the modern, uniform1872 koseki turned these status divisions into

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ko unit subcategories. Family class categoriesalso included occupational designations, forexample such-and-such appointment (bōyaku),employment (bōshoku), or vocation (bōtosei).The family class entry also became a site forperpetuating the discrimination of eta/hinin, forexample by identifying these population groupsby way of specific occupational terms, forexample ’miscellaneous work’ (zatsugyō (雑業). The family class entry was abolished in1947. Access is not available to copies of the1872 koseki registers, and the family classentry has been been erased in all subsequentpre-war registers to protect the burakuminority’s right to privacy (Krogness2008:15,28-29, 212-219).

24 The post-war two-generational ko-unit issimilar to the nuclear family to the extent thatit is defined as “a married couple and theirchildren, who bear the same surname.” Usuallycouples choose the husband’s surname as theirko-unit index. Their conjugal children willreceive that surname, for example Tanaka. ThisTanaka ko-unit is a unique administrativeentity; koseki parlance the surname thatindexes a unit is called an uji (氏). Should thisTanaka family include a child that the femalespouse a l ready had f rom an ear l ierrelationship, then that child’s surname wouldbe different from that of the present husbandand therefore not registered in that conjugalko-unit. Even if the biological father’s surnamewas Tanaka, too, that child would need to beadopted by the present husband to acquire hisuji and thus enter his register.

25 The Government Section of the SupremeCommander for the Allied Powers, which was incharge of the legal reforms of the Civil Code,Koseki Law and Nationality Law, insisted ondeleting these provisions, as automatic loss ofcitizenship due to marriage, acknowledgementor adoptions infringed on individual freedom.

26 Japanese statistics, for instance, account forthe Japanese population both by actualresidence and by honseki area (honsekichi).Given the tendency in many families tomaintain an ‘ancestral honseki’, the ‘residentialpopulation’ and the ‘honseki population’ oftendiffer considerably in a given village ormunicipal ward. The honseki population of avillage tends to be larger than the residentialpopulation. Conversely, in a municipal ward theresidential population tends to outnumber itshonseki population.

27 According to koseki scholar Shinmi Kichiji,the honseki principle may represent a feudalremnant rooted in the notations made in theregisters of samurai and lower samurai toindicate particular territorial ties (Shinmi 1959:297).

28 See Krogness (2008: 221–26) for a generaldiscussion of honseki in relation to theadministrative ‘ie’ order, as a signifier offamilial or territorial rootedness, and asindicator of minority backgrounds.

29 Minpō to koseki wo kangaeru onnatachi norenrakukai (the women’s council concernedwith the Civil Code and the koseki).