Rejection of Tokyo Trial threatens peace
- By Ni Tao
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, March 12, 2014
She said retroactive application of the new law was perceived to be tantamount to the imposition of "victors' justice" on the vanquished nation. This line of thinking quickly gained traction and has since been a refrain in Japanese denial of the trial's legitimacy.
At the other end of the political spectrum are Japanese critics who also regard the Tokyo Trial as "victors' justice," because Allied judges and prosecutors deliberately pulled their legal punches out of political expediency.
The biggest complaint of these Japanese is that Emperor Hirohito, arguably the No. 1 culprit, was spared indictment largely thanks to General Douglas MacArthur's intentions to appease Japan's rightists and maintain public order by granting the emperor immunity. MacArthur was the supreme commander of the Allied forces in Japan.
And although the trial convicted 28 high-ranking political and military leaders for Class-A crimes, many Japanese atrocities were not addressed at all — such as the use of chemical and biological weapons, forced labor, and comfort women (abducted women systematically forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese army brothels).
The failure to prosecute these crimes rendered the justice achieved at the Tokyo Trial inadequate and flawed, argued Zhu Dan, a visiting fellow in the International Criminal Court.
These unresolved "forgotten crimes" have occasionally come back to haunt us. Over the past few years, former comfort women, slave laborers and other victims of wartime atrocities have sought compensation from Japan, with little success.
A reason often cited for absolving Japan of compensation for these crimes is that the issues were not discussed at the Tokyo Trial and, thus, were supposedly "settled."
In late February, 37 former Chinese laborers filed a class action lawsuit in a Beijing court, suing two Japanese companies for enslavement and exploitation during the war. Given past records, their prospect of legal success is bleak.
That said, the failure to establish accountability on these issues does not nullify the significance of the Tokyo Trial, said Zhu, the visiting fellow at ICC.
"The greatest value of the Tokyo Trial is that by applying the law it warned those who seek to resurrect militarist ghosts," Professor Gao said.
It was only after Japan owned up to its wartime atrocities and renounced the use of force in its pacifist constitution that it secured the forgiveness of the world, especially some of its victims, he added.
Critics' negation of the Tokyo Trial will not only undermine reconciliation efforts with Japan's neighbors, but also threaten peace in Asia, said Gao.
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