뉴스레터

On June 20, 2014, the Northeast Asian History Foundation hosted an international conference on "Legal Policy Challenges with Compensation for Victims of Japanese Colonial Rule" with resounding success. For the last three years, from 2011 to 2013, the NAHF had hosted conferences along the same line as this year's, reexamining 'colonial' responsibility for the crimes against humanity in which Japan's state authority had been involved, such as forcing Koreans into military sexual slavery or labor, and crimes directly related to colonial rule, and the Korea-Japan Treaty system, and reviewing the challenges left by the 2011 Constitutional Court's decision and the 2012 Supreme Court's decision.

In its fourth year, with the 50th anniversary of the conclusion of the Korea-Japan Treaty approaching in 2015, this international conference was designed to address the concern that it was necessary to review 'legal policy challenges for compensating victims of Japanese colonial rule' on the basis of the definition of rule of law and the historical truth revealed over the last three years. Specifically, this conference was concerned with compensation for the victims of Japanese colonial rule identified on the list recently discovered in the Korean embassy to Japan, and set out to find what lay at the root of historical conflict between Korea and Japan and present legal policy challenges.

Under this underlying theme, this conference's program consisted of three presentation sessions, exploring, respectively: 1) damage from Japanese colonial rule and Japan's state responsibility and practices; 2) the cases of reparation for damage from colonial rule between China and Japan, between Britain and Kenya, and between the Netherlands and Indonesia as examples of international legal practices concerning responsibility for 'colonial' rule; and 3) compensation for victims of Japanese colonial rule and legal policy challenges ahead, and a general discussion session. Here is a summary of the presentations.

Japanese Judiciary's Decision Riddled with Political Logic

Chang Se Yun (Research Fellow at NAHF) gave a presentation on 'A historical light on the March 1st Korean Independence Movement of 1919 and the massacre of ethnic Koreans in Japan in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923,' addressing the need for a systematic investigation and study into the truth about the 1919 March 1st Movement where it is said 7,509 Koreans were killed, 15,961 injured, 46,947 imprisoned by the oppressive Japanese imperial force, and about the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in the aftermath of which about 90,000 Koreans are rumored to have been killed, and the urgent need to demand the Japanese government's responsible action in trying to reveal the truth and make compensation. ARIMATSU Ken (有光健) (Executive Director, Postwar Compensation Network, Japan) gave a presentation on 'The current status of Japan's "postwar compensation" and problems with its state practices,' noting that Japan should realize its historical responsibility for colonial rule and forced mobilization and make a joint declaration confirming the basic principle of cherishing the past and the future and addressing the need for a new treaty to overcome the 'final settlement' claim of the 1965 Korea-Japan Claims Treaty. Chang Bak-Jin (Researcher, Institute of Japanese Studies, Kookmin University) gave a presentation on 'The Korea-Japan claim's negotiation and individual compensation issues - The implication for the origin and solution of 'unresolvedness,' stressing that Japan had made the fund they had provided in connection with the actually concluded treaty legally irrelevant to the individual claims, in that its official position on the said treaty was that the government grants and loans of $500 million constituted economic assistance.

TAKAGI Yoshitaka (高木喜孝), a Japanese attorney at law, gave a presentation on 'A review on the Nishimatsu settlements for Chinese forced laborers,' criticizing the Japanese judiciary's decision riddled with political logic and exaggerations, which, although ruling that the 'waiver' of claims was equivalent to losing the power to make claims in trial, refused to listen to the Chinese government's view on whether the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement waived the claims of their people. Kavita Modi, a British solicitor, gave a presentation on 'The Mau Mau Litigation - a victory against the odds,' where she explained that the legal responsibility of the British government for its failure to take actions to stop torture by encouraging, condoning, and conniving the 'torture system' through the British army and the Colonial Office during the British colonial rule of Kenya would not be transferred to the legal responsibility of the Kenyan colonial government. Kang Pyoung Keun (Professor, Korea University Law School) gave a presentation on 'Netherlands-A review on Indonesia's colonial-era compensation claims against the Netherlands,' where he noted that the emergence of a new generation in the Netherlands in the 2010s as the background of the ruling that the victims of the Rawadege Massacre committed during the Dutch colonial rule should be compensated had led to the emergence of the notion that 'the statute of limitations of the cases of serious infringement on human rights never expires.' It is also worth noting, he added, that in addition to the compensation for the victims, the heartfelt 'apology' made by the Dutch government was considered important.

Choi Cheol Young (Professor, College of Law, Daegu University) gave a presentation on 'Japan's state responsibility for illegalities during the colonial era,' where he noted that the Japanese government's responsibility for violating the international human rights law and the international humanitarian law by mobilizing 'comfort women' by force and setting up and running comfort stations still remained, and pointed out that it was logically inconsistent for the Japanese government to have kept silent about this issue during the process that led up to the conclusion of the Korea-Japan Treaty and then to quote this treaty. OTA Osamu (太田修) (Professor at Doshisha University) gave a presentation on 'Japan's challenges of colonial rule and war responsibility,' where he noted that since colonial rule and the war of aggression constitute violence committed by the state, we could enter a new stage in history by overcoming the Japanese government's unjust claim that "the Korea-Japan Claims Agreement" had resolved the problem once and for all," and addressing any and all cases of violence and human rights infringement committed by the state, including the damage caused by colonial rule and war, through: 1) investigations into the truth; 2) inquiries into responsibility; 3) apology; 4) monetary compensation; and 5) education, memory, and the organization of legal and institutional devices.

Establish the Concept of Positive Peace Based on Human Dignity

Finally, I gave a presentation on 'Future challenges to ensure compensation for victims of Japanese colonial rule,' presenting the legal principles of human rights, justice, and peace under international law to stress the need for: 1) a switch from the nationalistic philosophy, which was the basis of Japanese colonial rule and the imperial line of aggression, to human rights-centered thinking; 2) the pursuit of justice as a possible response to the violated human rights of the victims of Japanese colonial rule; and 3) the establishment of the concept of positive peace based on human dignity as a universal human value, going beyond negative peace based on apology and compensation for colonial rule and aggression.

This international conference, held at a time when inquiring into 'colonial' responsibility and settling the damage were emerging as a global challenge, served as an important occasion to have an in-depth discussion about legal policy challenges for the compensation of victims of Japanese colonial rule.