뉴스레터

Question:

I heard that an Indian Justice found all defendants at the Tokyo Trials not guilty of Class A war crimes and has been revered by the Japanese. What led him to such ruling? Was he pro-Japanese?

Answer:

Tokyo Trials and Justice Pal's dissent

Radhabinod Pal (1886-1967) was an Indian jurist and judge. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (also known as the Tokyo Trials) from 1946 to 1948 charged 28 Japanese leaders during World War II with not only war crimes, but also crimes against peace (planning, preparation or waging of wars of aggression) and crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, genocide, enslavement and deportation before or during the war or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds). The court sentenced seven people to death, 16 to life imprisonment and two to imprisonment, with two who died of illness and one with mental disorders excluded.

Pal was the only one who found every defendant not guilty, among the 11 Justices. His dissenting opinion led many Japanese to believe that Pal argued Japan's innocence and the Japanese who deny Japan's responsibility for war use his ruling as the basis of their argument. A monument dedicated to him was erected within the premise of the Yasukuni Shrine and the public opinion has been built that Japan's harsh view on history dates back to the Toyko Trials. In addition, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a grandson of the Class A war criminal-turned prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, met with Pal's son during his visit to India in office.

Criticism against colonialism of powers including Japan

What is important, however, is that Pal never negated Japan's moral responsibility. In his over 300-page dissent (picture), Pal criticized Japan for staging wars of aggression and acknowledged the Japanese Armed Forces' countless numbers of wartime atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre.

While Justice Pal found no grounds under international laws to find guilty Japanese leaders during World War II, he also targeted the Allied Powers in resentment against Western Powers' colonialism, strongly criticizing the United States' use of atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. According to him, in other words, the Tokyo Trials are a mere judgment of the vanquished by the victors, although the Allied Powers and Japan are no different in their pursuit of colonialism and imperialism.

Japanese nationalists should no longer selectively choose passage of his dissent for their purposes and learn from Judge Pal's cold neutrality as a jurist for lasting peace.