The Tokyo Tribunal: Perspectives on Law, History and Memory

The Tokyo Tribunal: Perspectives on Law, History and Memory
Author: Marina Aksenova
Publisher: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 828348138X

The ‘International Military Tribunal for the Far East’ (IMTFE), held in Tokyo from May 1946 to November 1948, was a landmark event in the development of modern international criminal law. The trial in Tokyo was a complex undertaking and international effort to hold individuals accountable for core international crimes and delivering justice. The Tribunal consisted of 11 judges and respective national prosecution teams from 11 countries, and a mixed Japanese–American team of defence lawyers. The IMTFE indicted 28 Japanese defendants, amongst them former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, military leaders, and diplomats, based on a 55-count indictment pertaining to crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The judgment was not unanimous, with one majority judgment, two concurring opinions, and three dissenting opinions. The trial and the outcome were the subject of significant controversy and the Tribunal’s files were subsequently shelved in the archives. While its counterpart in Europe, the ‘International Military Tribunal’ (IMT) at Nuremberg, has been at the centre of public and scholarly interest, the Tokyo Tribunal has more recently gained international scholarly attention. This volume combines perspectives from law, history, and the social sciences to discuss the legal, historical, political and cultural significance of the Tokyo Tribunal. The collection is based on an international conference marking the 70th anniversary of the judgment of the IMTFE, which was held in Nuremberg in 2018. The volume features reflections by eminent scholars and experts on the establishment and functioning of the Tribunal, procedural and substantive issues as well as receptions and repercussions of the trial.

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal
Author: David Cohen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 561
Release: 2018-11-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107119707

Challenges the persistent orthodoxies of the Tokyo tribunal and provides a new framework for evaluating the trial, revealing its importance to international jurisprudence.

Beyond Victor's Justice? The Tokyo War Crimes Trial Revisited

Beyond Victor's Justice? The Tokyo War Crimes Trial Revisited
Author: Yuki Tanaka
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2011-06-09
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004215913

The aim of this new collection of essays is to engage in analysis beyond the familiar victor’s justice critiques. The editors have drawn on authors from across the world — including Australia, Japan, China, France, Korea, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — with expertise in the fields of international humanitarian law, international criminal law, Japanese studies, modern Japanese history, and the use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The diverse backgrounds of the individual authors allow the editors to present essays which provide detailed and original analyses of the Tokyo Trial from legal, philosophical and historical perspectives. Several of the essays in the collection are based on the authors’ extensive archival research in Japan, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, providing rich insights into Japanese societal attitudes towards the Trial, biological experimentation by the Japanese Army in China, as well as the trial of Korean prison guards and prosecutions for rape and sexual assault in the post-war period. Some of the essays deal with particular participants in the Trial, examining the role of individual judges, and the selection of defendants and the decision not to prosecute the Emperor. Other essays analyse the Trial from a legal perspective, and address its impact on concepts such as command responsibility, conspiracy and war crimes. The majority of the essays seek to identify and address some of the ‘forgotten crimes’ in the Tokyo Trial. These include crimes committed in China and Korea (particularly the activities of the infamous Unit 731), crimes committed against comfort women, and crimes associated with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the conventional firebombing of other Japanese cities and the illicit drug trade in China. Finally, the collection includes a number of essays which consider the importance of studying the Tokyo Trial and its contemporary relevance. These issues include an examination of the way in which academics have ‘written’ the Trial over the last 60 years, and an analysis of some of the lessons that can be drawn for international trials in the future.

The Comfort Women

The Comfort Women
Author: C. Sarah Soh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2020-05-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 022676804X

In an era marked by atrocities perpetrated on a grand scale, the tragedy of the so-called comfort women—mostly Korean women forced into prostitution by the Japanese army—endures as one of the darkest events of World War II. These women have usually been labeled victims of a war crime, a simplistic view that makes it easy to pin blame on the policies of imperial Japan and therefore easier to consign the episode to a war-torn past. In this revelatory study, C. Sarah Soh provocatively disputes this master narrative. Soh reveals that the forces of Japanese colonialism and Korean patriarchy together shaped the fate of Korean comfort women—a double bind made strikingly apparent in the cases of women cast into sexual slavery after fleeing abuse at home. Other victims were press-ganged into prostitution, sometimes with the help of Korean procurers. Drawing on historical research and interviews with survivors, Soh tells the stories of these women from girlhood through their subjugation and beyond to their efforts to overcome the traumas of their past. Finally, Soh examines the array of factors— from South Korean nationalist politics to the aims of the international women’s human rights movement—that have contributed to the incomplete view of the tragedy that still dominates today.

Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial

Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial
Author: Guénaël Mettraux
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 828
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199232334

The Nuremberg Trial was a landmark in the development of international law, its influence continues to shape our understanding of international criminal justice. This volume presents the most important essays examining the trial from legal, political, historical and philosophical perspectives. Together, the perspectives provide an overview of the Trial that is invaluable to understanding the significance of the Nuremberg Trial to modern international law and politics.

Hong Kong's War Crimes Trials

Hong Kong's War Crimes Trials
Author: Suzannah Linton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199643288

Immediately after the Second World War 46 trials were held by the British military in Hong Kong in which 123 defendants, mainly from Japan, were tried for war crimes. This book is the first to analyze these trials, situating them within their historical context and showing their importance for the development of international criminal law.

The Dawn of a Discipline

The Dawn of a Discipline
Author: édéric Mégret
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2020-09-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108488188

The history of international criminal justice told through the revealing stories of some of its primary intellectual figures.

The Tokyo Tribunal

The Tokyo Tribunal
Author: Viviane E Dittrich
Publisher: Torkel Opsahl Academic Epublisher
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9788283481372

Edited by Dr. Viviane E. Dittrich, Prof. Kerstin von Lingen, Prof. Philipp Osten and Dr. Jolana Makraiova, this book concerns the 'International Military Tribunal for the Far East' (IMTFE), held in Tokyo from May 1946 to November 1948. It was a landmark event in the development of modern international criminal law. The trial in Tokyo was a complex undertaking and international effort to hold individuals accountable for core international crimes and delivering justice. The Tribunal consisted of 11 judges and respective national prosecution teams from 11 countries, and a mixed Japanese-American team of defence lawyers. The IMTFE indicted 28 Japanese defendants, amongst them former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, military leaders, and diplomats, based on a 55-count indictment pertaining to crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The judgment was not unanimous, with one majority judgment, two concurring opinions, and three dissenting opinions. The trial and the outcome were the subject of significant controversy and the Tribunal's files were subsequently shelved in the archives. While its counterpart in Europe, the 'International Military Tribunal' (IMT) at Nuremberg, has been at the centre of public and scholarly interest, the Tokyo Tribunal has more recently gained international scholarly attention. This volume combines perspectives from law, history, and the social sciences to discuss the legal, historical, political and cultural significance of the Tokyo Tribunal. The collection is based on an international conference marking the 70th anniversary of the judgment of the IMTFE, which was held in Nuremberg in 2018. The volume features reflections by eminent scholars and experts on the establishment and functioning of the Tribunal, procedural and substantive issues as well as receptions and repercussions of the trial.

Last Mission to Tokyo

Last Mission to Tokyo
Author: Michel Paradis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 150110473X

A narrative account of the Doolittle Raids of World War II traces the daring Raiders attack on mainland Japan, the fate of the crews who survived the mission, and the international war crimes trials that defined Japanese-American relations and changed legal history.