WEBZINE NORTHEAST ASIAN HISTORY FOUNDATION

Civic Efforts Needed to Correct the Misinformed About Dokdo in Japan On January 25, 2018, the National Museum of Territory and Sovereignty opened at Hibiya Park in central Tokyo, Japan. With the purpose of "enhancing people's understanding of Japan's territory," the museum displays material that supports the Japanese government's territorial claim over the Korean island Dokdo. The museum seems to be part of Japan's increasingly blatant moves involving territorial sovereignty, which is why this month's interview seeks advice on how Korea should respond from Professor Sung Jae-ho of Sungkyunkwan University, a seasoned expert in international law.

Sung Jae-ho (Professor, Sungkyunkwan University Law School)

Punishments by the IMTFE on Crimes Against Humanity During his first administration, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo claimed that "those convicted as Class A criminals The commonly used term "trials on Class A·B·C war crimes" is in fact inaccurate. The labels A, B, C were adopted for the sake of convenience to distinguish crimes against peace, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Article 5 of the IMTFE charter covering jurisdiction over persons and offenses. The division of A, B, C in English was not according to the seriousness of crimes, which means it is technically more accurate to recognize them as "type" A, B, C rather than "class" A, B, C. Crimes against peace for causing wars of aggression mostly applied to high-ranking commanders, which could be understood as more serious than conventional war crimes or crimes against humanity that low-ranking soldiers or officials were charged of committing, but it is in fact impossible to distinguish the seriousness of each type of crime under international law. are not considered war criminals under Japanese law." In 2013, the first year of Abe's second administration, he further claimed that "the Allied Forces gave convictions from a victor's point of view." Such claims originated from the dissenting opinion the Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal, one of the eleven jurists of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), attached to the judgement, arguing that the definition of "invasion" was not clear under international law. Claiming that the Tokyo trials were dispensing victor's justice is a repetition of similar arguments made over the Nuremburg trials that ended in 1946. And the very same arguments over the Nuremburg trials were almost wholly inherited by Radhabinod Pal's dissenting opinion, especially the one that a definition for wars of aggression does not exist in international law and that it is no more than a label assigned by a victor to a loser. Meanwhile, the opinion arose that the IMTFE should deal with Japan's invasion and annexation of Korea as a crime against peace. This was because recognizing Japan's war crimes from when 62 countries including Japan signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact had left out the crime of invading Korea that began well before the pact was made in 1928. So, it was up to Korea to prove it had been invaded by Japan.

Yu Ha-young (Research fellow, NAHF Institute of Dokdo Research)

A Guidebook to Territorial and Maritime Research "Studies of International Rulings on Territorial and Maritime Disputes" has been published as part of the research series among the Northeast Asian Foundation's list of publications. As a product of years of joint research by maritime legal experts that covers 31 major international cases involving disputes over islands, seas, or borders, including the latest ruling on the South China Sea in 2016, the publication is expected to serve as a guidebook to territorial and maritime research.

Doh See-hwan (Research fellow, NAHF Institute of Dokdo Research)

NAHF News On January 17, 2018, the 8th Dokdo Awards ceremony was held at a conference room of the Northeast Asian History Foundation. The Foundation has been giving the award every year since 2009 to encourage and promote research on the Korean island Dokdo and other relevant activities. The "Dokdo Research Award" is given to scholars who have shown outstanding progress in Dokdo research, while the "I Love Dokdo Award" is given to an individual or group that has been keenly involved in activities to protect Dokdo. Through the 8th awards ceremony, Research fellow Park Hyun-jin of Yonsei University's Institute for Legal Studies was presented with the Dokdo Research Award and the I Love Dokdo Award was presented to Kim Eun-hee, a teacher at Bongilcheon Elementary School, as well as Voluntary Network Agency of Korea (VANK), a cyber public diplomacy group.

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