Women, peace, and security (WPS) has attracted attention as a key phrase for exploring Japanese diplomacy. Since ratifying the UN’s WPS resolution, Japan has developed three successive action plans and has taken active steps to implement the resolution. These steps have covered a diverse range of areas, including addressing conflict-related scenarios and the threat of natural disasters and climate change, and developing talent to disseminate the WPS agenda.

Considering this history and track record, Japan has an opportunity to consider international relations from a gender perspective and use active diplomacy to build a peaceful future. To that end, it is imperative that leaders in Japan take up the torch of gender equality from those who have gone before and present the world with a new diplomatic approach for WPS, one that draws on Japan’s strengths and considers global trends.

The year 2025 is an opportune year. In addition to marking the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the WPS resolution, it is a year in which Japan is co-chairing the WPS Focal Points Network with Norway. As co-chair in this memorial year, Japan has a historic mission to present a future vision for the WPS.

Considering this, our study group has committed to re-evaluating gender and international security from a contemporary viewpoint. We want to incorporate women’s perspectives as much as possible into new discourses on protecting women from sexual violence in conflict scenarios, on improving gender equality by assigning women a stronger role in peace processes and crisis resolution, on dealing with climate change and preventing or managing natural disasters, and addressing the new threat of technology-facilitated gender-based violence. Our activities comprise the following: 1) archiving information about WPS and monitoring WPS-related trends; 2) using intellectual exchanges at different levels to broadcast Japan’s WPS experience, expertise, and contributions to a national and international audience; and finally, 3) drafting policy recommendations and sharing with policymakers an intellectual architecture for envisaging the next stage in Japanese diplomacy. For these purposes, our study group adopts the following organizational framework for research.