“Heavenly principle (天理), state law (国法), human sentiment/compassion (人情)” and nuclear policy in east Asia.

• Main Author: Morita, Akihiko
• Other Authors: Asian constitutional law recent developments and trends : Vietnam, Hanoi, 6th and 7th December 2019. Volume 1
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: Vietnamese
• Published: Đại học Quốc Gia Hà Nội 2020
• Subjects: Nuclear policy; State law; East Asia
• Online Access: http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/94731
• Institution: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

Energy policy is highly political, and we must take it as a major challenge for our democracy because political decision-making in a liberal democracy must be democratic. Complex sociotechnological systems such as nuclear energy plants need a new approach, and “Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)’s Fukushima nuclear accident” should not be taken as a special instance of a failure for which TEPCO alone was responsible, but rather as a representative repercussion of “Third Wave” civilization. We need to shift from an anthropocentric view to an ecological and informational one, which forces us to reexamine the modern scientism that originated in the West. To do so we need to reexamine the way of thinking unconsciously embedded as a de-facto framework in our mind, a framework internalized through a process of modernization for which the West was the paradigm influence.I propose linking a regional/international energy cooperation framework with a regional/international human rights body, and for this purpose, we need to develop a set of new stories in order to transform the regional political order in the Asia Pacific, based on the universal norms such as human rights, democracy and rule of law and that the underlying new stories must be grounded in the common narratives of humanity, society and their non-anthropocentric values in the region. “Heavenly Principle, State Law, Human Sentiment,” the East Asian political ideal is worth reexamining as an entry point for such enterprise