[Editor’s note]

Japan was one of the earliest countries that signed a contract with Pfizer for 120 million doses in July 2020. However, the subsequent approval process was comparably slow and the vaccine reservation system caused chaos for the Japanese society. The municipal offices started vaccine reservations for the elderly first, but there were huge problems in the design of the system; the mismatch between spot availability and eligibility for reservation, and an online-centric reservation system without sufficient offline support. The elderly were thrown into confusion either because they are vulnerable to the new system or because the system went down with an incapable number of people approaching at the same time. Maiko Ichihara, associate professor at Hitotsubashi University, insists that the root of the problem is, paradoxically, the emphasis on the fairness of opportunity and not giving consideration to individual characteristics. The research shows that the problem of superficial fairness is widely ranged in human rights issues in Japan by taking instances of refugees and female politicians in Japan. The author points out that it is time for the Japanese society to reconsider the approach to realize equality by taking into account the features of each vulnerable group.

Introduction

COVID-19 vaccination in Japan has caused confusion for the elderly. Although a substantial portion of the elderly is not familiar with the Internet, municipalities used online reservation systems and designated an incomparably large number of elderly people as able to reserve spots at once. The reservation sites went down due to the large number of simultaneous accesses and, unfamiliar with such systems, the elderly users were at a loss to understand the situation. They also tried to make reservations by phone, but the phone lines were jammed and calls could not be answered. In anxiety, the elderly rushed to municipal offices in large numbers and vented their anger when they learned that the offices would not accept their reservations in person.

The root of the problem lies in the fact that many municipal offices tried to ensure fairness of opportunity without taking into account the characteristics of the target population. After explaining the confusion surrounding the vaccine approval process and the characteristics of the vaccine reservation systems in Japan, this paper analyzes how the reservation systems were problematic from the perspective of equity. The final section discusses how fairness should be interpreted in order to protect human rights. ■

• Maiko Ichihara is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Law at Hitotsubashi University, Japan, and a Visiting Scholar in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is also a co-chair of the Democracy for the Future project at the Japan Center for International Exchange. Throughout her career, she has undertaken research on international relations, democracy support, and Japanese foreign policy. Her recent publications include: “Universality to Plurality? Values in Japanese Foreign Policy,” in Yoichi Funabashi and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Crisis of Liberalism: Japan and the International Order (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2020); and Japan’s International Democracy Assistance as Soft Power: Neoclassical Realist Analysis (New York and London: Routledge, 2017).

• Typeset by Junghye Suh, Research Associate
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