Newsletter

On June 22, 2014, the 49th anniversary of the conclusion of the Korea-Japan Agreement, the NAHF published the third volume of Revisiting the Fifty Years of the Agreement between South Korea and Japan, subtitled 'Revisiting the Decisions on Imperial Japan's Colonial Responsibility and the Korea-Japan Agreement System.'

Assuming that Imperial Japan's colonial rule was legal, Japan is denying their colonial responsibility itself for the damage done to 'comfort women' and the victims of the draft and claiming that whatever responsibility there was has been settled by the Korea-Japan Agreement.

But the Korean judicial branch, including the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Korea, made the following notable decisions. The first of such decisions was made by the Constitutional Court of Korea in 2011, ruling in the constitutional appeal filed by 'comfort women' and A-bomb victims that the government's failure to observe the obligation to act by not taking steps toward renegotiation and arbitration provided under Article 3 of the Korea-Japan Settlement Agreement had been unconstitutional. The second of such decisions was made by the Supreme Court of Korea in 2012. It was a historic decision that refused to recognize the validity of Japan's decision in the damage suit filed by the victims of Imperial Japan's draft acknowledging the legality of Imperial Japan's occupation and colonial rule, on the grounds that Japan's decision was in conflict with the key values of the Constitutions of Korea that viewed such acts as illegal.

This book on revisiting such decisions on Imperial Japan's colonial responsibility and the Korea-Japan Agreement system was written by a total of nine authors, including six Japanese experts of history, international law, and international politics, and Korean and Japanese scholars and practitioners from Korea and Japan who had carried out the lawsuits. The main points are presented as follows.

The Supreme Court of Japan's Decision is a Self-Righteous Interpretation

Lawyer Shuichi Adichi (足立修一) said that post-war compensation lawsuits in Japan had the following four limitations: 1) controversies surrounding the acknowledgement of facts; 2) the principle of the state's irresponsibility; 3) the passage of time, and 4) political restrictions. At this point, the Japanese government is interpreting the waiver clause in the Korea-Japan Settlement Agreement as "completely settled," he pointed out, but they are not denying that it is "the matter of legislation policy." This decision of the Supreme Court of Japan, he criticized, is noting but a self-righteous interpretation that wouldn't be valid anywhere but in Japan.

International Conference on Revisiting the 50 Years of the Korea-Japan Agreement in session

Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at Waseda University Lee Jong Won gave an overview of the battle surrounding 'the war of aggression' and 'colonial rule' and how the conservatives reacted to the Murayama Statement. From the 1990s onward, he explained, there had been consistent expansion in NGO-led movements to seek historical reconciliation with Korea and the rest of Asia over the issues of historical perception and post-war settlement. From the 2000s onward, however, he pointed out, with its relatively lowered status politically and economically, Japan has experienced increasing introversion in society and 'rightward shift' in politics, which has shaped the current Abe administration's attitude.

Professor Fumitoshi Yoshizawa (吉澤文壽) pointed out that the Korea-Japan talks had led to the normalization of diplomatic ties between the two countries without a shared perception of the illegality or unfairness of colonial rule. He also argued that the responsibilities to overcome the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty and related agreements and to establish 'colonial responsibility' lay with the peoples of Korea and Japan of today.

Professor Kogi Abe (阿部浩己), assuming the trend of international laws and regulations that there could be no 21st century without overcoming colonialism, said that the Japanese government should be serious in responding to the discussion and arbitration to fix injustice. It should be made absolutely clear, he also stressed, that the issue of sexual slavery for the Japanese military is along the same line as the post-war compensation lawsuits that started in the 1990s in that at the root of it is colonial rule.

Positive Peace for Human Dignity Should Be Pursued

The joint statement of Korean and Japanese intellectuals that declared, on the occasion of the centennial of Japan's forced annexation of Korea, that the 1910 Korea-Japan Treaty of Annexation was null and void is the East Asian equivalent of the 2001 Durban Declaration. And its message is to seek historical reconciliation by getting history right. It moves further from negative peace under international law seeking apology and reparation for Imperial Japan's colonial rule and pursues positive peace on the basis of human dignity as the universal value of mankind. The year 2015, half a century after the Korea-Japan Agreement, should be the starting point for working together toward the East Asian Peace Community.