Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-sqlfs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-11T02:32:58.265Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Korean Hibakusha, Japan's Supreme Court & the International Community: Can the U.S. & Japan Confront Forced Labor & Atomic Bombing?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

David Palmer
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The Japanese Supreme Court's fall 2007 ruling in favor of Korean hibakusha medical compensation rights represents an important, though only partial, victory. The decision denied these Korean atomic victims, who were forced laborers at Mitsubishi's Hiroshima Shipyard, compensation for unpaid wages. Resolving outstanding forced labor cases, as well as fully recognizing, apologizing and compensating all hibakusha, requires a broader international solution of “mutual apology and mutual compensation” by both Japan and the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , February 2008 , e17
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

References

Notes

[1] “Korean hibakusha benefit snub illegal,” The Japan Times, Nov. 2, 2007; “Shinsha shyouso ni eminaku,” Chugoku Shinbun, Nov. 2, 2007.

[2] For the definition of eligibility, see the 1995 law, which contains the same definition as the first 1957 law (reprinted in Keiko Ogura, ed., Hiroshima Handbook (Japanese-English) (Hiroshima: The Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace (HIP), 1995), pp. 179, 198. In early 2007? the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling against the Hiroshima prefectural government's denial of allowances to three hibakusha living in Brazil. This case provided a precedent for the November 1 ruling on behalf of the Korean hibakusha, and in practice it reaffirmed the original eligibility language in the law (“Top court sides with hibakusha in Brazil,” The Japan Times, Feb. 7, 2007.)

[3] Background on the Korean hibakusha workers at Mitsubishi Shipyard is from Yamada Tadafumi interview, Hiroshima, Sept. 28, 2004, Hiroshima, Dec. 21, 2005, with David Palmer; conference between Zaima Hidekazu and other lawyers representing the Korean plaintiffs and community supporters, Hiroshima, Dec. 22, 2005 (the author was in attendance but not interviewing); Fukagawa Munetoshi, Umi ni kieta ni hibaku Chyousenjin chouyoukou – Chinkon no kaikyou (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1992 – originally published 1974); Palmer, David, “‘The Straits of Dead Souls’: One Man's Investigation into the Disappearance of Mitsubishi Hiroshima's Korean Forced Labourers,” Japanese Studies, vol. 26, no. 3, Dec. 2006, pp. 335-351.

[4] “Contemporary Practice of the United States,” The American Journal of International Law, (vol. 99), 2005, pp. 902-904; U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Hwang Geum Joo, et al. v. Japan, Minister Yohei Kono, Minister of Foreign Affairs, No. 01-7169, decision June 28, 2005.

[5] William Underwood, “The Japanese Court, Mitsubishi and Corporate Resistance to Chinese Forced Labor Redress,” Japan Focus, Feb. 8, 2006.

[6] Ruti Teitel, “Transitional Jurisprudence: The role of law in political transformation,” The Yale Law Journal, vol. 106, issue 7, May 1997, p. 2014.

[7] Underwood, “The Japanese Court, Mitsubishi and Corporate Responsibility”; Michael Marek, “Final compensation pending for former Nazi forced laborers,” Deutsche Welle online, Oct. 27, 2005.

[8] Minami Norio, “Resolving the Wartime Forced Labor Compensation Question,” Shukan Kinyobi, May 21, 2004, translated by Ben Middleton and published in Japan Focus.

[9] See Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (London: Allan Lane, 2006), pp. 99-134, and works cited in endnotes.

[10] See Peter Hayes, From Competition to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

[11] Jerome B. Cohen, Japan's Economy in War and Reconstruction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949). See in particular chart 2, “Growth of ‘Big Four’ Zaibatsu, 1930-45” (p. 508), and chart 3, “Financial Position of 17 Holding Companies, 1930-45” (p. 509). John G. Roberts, Mitsui: Three Centuries of Japanese Business (New York: Weatherhill, 1973) has some excellent chapters on this zaibatsu during the rise of militarism and Pacific War years, but it stands alone. No comparable works in English exist for Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, or other zaibatsu. Nakamura Naofumi's survey article, “The Present State of Research on Zaibatsu: The Case of Mitsubishi,” Social Science Japan Journal, vol. 5, no. 2, Oct. 1, 2002, pp. 233-242 further illustrates how zaibatsu history has generally glossed over the connection to Japan's wartime political economy.

[12] Hidemasa Morikawa, Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups in Japan (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992), pp. ix, 223-237.

[13] Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation (London: Time Warner, 2002).

[14] See, for example, Chyousenjin kyousei renkou chinso chyousadan, Chyousenjin kyousei renkou chinso chyousa no kiroku – Chugoku hen (Tokyo, 2001) (The Investigation Team on the Truth about Forced Korean Laborers in Japan, Records of the Investigation of Forcibly Transported Koreans: Chugoku Edition); and Hiroshima no kyousei renkou o chyousa suru kai, Chikago no umareta Chyousenjin kyousei roudou (Tokyo, 1992) (Hiroshima Association for the Investigation of Forcibly Transported Prisoners (editors), Korean forced laborers buried in the underground air raid shelters).

[15] John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (London: Allan Lane, 1999), p. 456.

[16] R. John Pritchard and Sonia Magbanua Zaide, eds., The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (New York: Garland, 1981), “Explanatory Military Tribunal of the Far East – Indictment; Count 53; Count 54,” vol. 1; “Judgment…,” vol. 20, pp. 48,415-417. Non-Allied power nations Portugal (with its colonies of Timor and Macao) and Thailand (technically neutral) were also included among those countries bringing charges of war crimes against Japan.

[17] The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, “Judgment…,” vol. 20, pp. 48,415-417.

[18] Dower, Embracing Defeat, pp. 464, 465.

[19] Michael Petersen, “The Intelligence that Wasn't: CIA Name Files, the U.S. Army, and Intelligence Gathering in Occupied Japan,” Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, Researching Japanese War Crimes Records: Introductory Essays (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2006), pp. 197-230.

[20] William Underwood email to David Palmer, Oct. 19, 2007.