This study explores how immigrant political rights have evolved in Japan, discussing the case of immigrant voting right in local elections. The recent increase of international immigrants has been accompanied by immigrant rights claims in Japan. International human rights and the local level of immigration politics have contributed to ameliorate human, civil, and cultural rights for immigrants in Japan. With the new debate on the immigrant right to vote in local elections, however, immigrant political identities and the national level of immigration politics (in the Diet), which have been overlooked thus far, have come on the central stage of immigration politics. The debate on immigrant voting rights issues began with a 1990 lawsuit filed by eleven Korean immigrants from Osaka, Japan. This lawsuit could be seen as an extension of a series of lawsuits that had previously been filed by members of the 'resident' Korean identity groups against various instances of discrimination. This legal struggle by the new Korean resident identity, which is different from North Korean diasporic identityâ??rejecting the voting rightâ??and South Korean transnational identityâ??appropriating the voting right as 'Korean' right, produced an opportunity structure in which various organizations, opposition parties, and local governments come together in their common struggle for immigrant voting rights. The 1995 ruling of the Japanese Supreme Court, an interpretation of law based on legal positivism, shifted its location of the decision from the Court to the Diet by stating that the voting right can be granted if it is passed through appropriate legislative processes. Finally, the Diet, dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party, turned down bills for the immigrant right to vote for local elections in 2000, showing that the final instance to decide the political rights for (old and new) immigrants is still in the hand of nationalist politicians in the LDP. In conclusion, this study suggests three potential developments of the post-war immigration politics in Japan, according to political positions on the issue of the voting rights and immigrant identities. The 'no voting right for foreigners' position will preserve the notion of the post-war Japanese nation attached to the ideas of citizenship and state, while maintaining political exclusion of all immigrants. The 'voting rights only for South Koreans (Taiwanese)' position would bring the pre-war empire back into the picture by selectively including immigrants, while excluding various new immigrant groups as well as North Koreans. Finally, this study argues that the 'voting rights for all foreigners' position, based on human/civil rights and Jumin consciousness, will facilitate the building of a broad incorporationist coalition among old and new immigrants, human right activists, immigrant advocacy groups, local governments, and political parties, This final option would provide the pivotal basis for the beginnings of post-national politics in Japan ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]