1947年开始施行的《日本国宪法》是日本战败后在美国主导下制定的具有资本主义特色的现代立宪主义宪法。但第25条的生存权条款是在日本社会党及民间修宪者的积极推动下写入宪法的，具有明显的社会主义宪法特色。长期以来，日本主流宪法学界受德国法教义学的影响，将生存权视为客观的宪法权利，否定其请求权，进而以“自律权论”来论证国家消极作为的正当性。但也有法学者抨击西方改良主义生存权的缺陷，日本国民也坚持通过违宪审查诉讼来维护宪法赋予的生存权利。但生存权的保障以公共财源的存在为前提，日本宪法没有关于经济制度的规定，自由资本主义经济体制决定日本无法完全实现生存权保障的国家义务。
The Constitution of Japan，which came into force in 1947，is considered to be a modern constitutional constitution with capitalist characteristics formulated under the leadership of the United States. However，the right to life provisions in Article 25，were written into the Constitution under the active promotion of the Socialist Party of Japan and the civil revisers of the Constitution，with obvious characteristics of socialist law. For a long time，the mainstream constitutional academia in Japan，influenced by the German jurisprudence，regarded the right to life as an objective constitutional right，denied its right to claim，and then demonstrated the legitimacy of the negative actions of the country with the “theory of personal autonomy”. However，some scholars criticized the defects of the western reformist right to life，and Japanese citizens also insisted on safeguarding the right to life granted by the Constitution through the judicial review. However，the guarantee of the right to live is based on the existence of public financial resources. The Constitution of Japan has no provisions on the economic system. The free capitalist economic system determines that Japan cannot fully realize its national obligation to guarantee the right to life.
