Abstract
This chapter looks at the preparation of a legal and historical narrative for the Fifteen Years War by the International Prosecution Section and difficulties it faced to connect distinct theaters and moments of war to build its case. Babovic argues that the Allied version of events represents the hegemonic narrative as it focuses on charge of aggression and manipulates events in order to fit them into it. The analysis of the indictment reveals that due to the lack of direct evidence, the prosecution had to rely on the suspicious legal concepts in international law to give to the case coherence that is otherwise missing. The chapter demonstrates the prosecution’s determination to get convictions of all defendants and prevent their acquittals.
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Notes
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Gerry Simpson, “International Criminal Justice and the Past,” 140–141 in Gideon Boas, William A. Schabas, and Michael P. Scharf, eds., International Criminal Justice: Legitimacy and Coherence (Northampton: Massachusetts, 2012).
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Richard Ashby, Wilson, Writing History in International Criminal Trials (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2011, 70.
- 3.
Kirsten Sellars, ‘Crimes Against Peace’ and International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2013, 185.
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Sellars, ‘Crimes Against Peace’ and International Law, 102.
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Tosh Minohara, ed., The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to Present (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 69.
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Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 93.
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Franck Michelin, “L’Indochine française et l’expansion vers le sud du Japon à l’orée de la Guerre du Pacifique. Politique étrangère et processus de décision, 29 juin 1940–8 décembre 1941,” (French Indochina and Japan’s Expansion in the South Asia at the Beginning of the Pacific War: Foreign Policy and Decision Making Process, June 29, 1940–December 8, 1941) (Doctoral thesis: Université Paris-Sorbonne), 2014, 76; Franck Michelin, “Décider et agir. L’intrusion japonaise en Indochine française (juin 1940),” (Decide and Act. Japanese intrusion into French Indochina (June 1940), Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire 83:2004, 75–93.
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Robert L. Guill, Notes, n.d., RG331, IPS07–13, NDL.
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Neil Boster and Robert Cryer, Documents on the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Charter, Indictment, and Judgement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 43–45.
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Akira Iriye and Waren Cohen, ed., American, Chinese, and Japanese Perspectives on Wartime Asia, 1931–1935, Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1990, 223–234.
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“Item 2—Minutes of Fourteenth Meeting of Executive Committee,” April 5, 1946, Box 1, Folder 3, MSS 93–4, Special Collections, University of Virginia Law School.
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James Sedgwick, “The trial within: negotiating international justice” 66.
- 14.
Bruno Simma, “The Impact of Nuremberg and Tokyo: Attempts at a Comparison,” in Nisuke Ando, ed., Japan and International Law: Past, Present, Future (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999), 83.
- 15.
Comyns Carr to Shawcross, March 19, 1946 cited in Sellars, ‘Crimes Against Peace’ and International Law, 190–191.
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J.B. Keenan and B.F. Brown, Crimes Against International Law (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1950), 89 in ‘Crimes Against Peace’ and International Law, 192.
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State Department to Keenan, “The Crime of Conspiracy,” Memorandum, May 23, 1946, 33 in NARA II, RG 84.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
Richard Overy, “The Nuremberg Trials: International Law in the Making,” in Philip Sands, ed., From Nuremberg to The Hague: The Future of the International Criminal Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 16.
- 20.
“Charter of the IMTFE,” April 29, 1946, Article 5(a) in Boister and Cryer, eds., Documents on the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Charter, Indictment, and Judgements (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 8.
- 21.
“Charter of the IMTFE,” April 29, 1946, Article 5(a) in Ibid.
- 22.
Sellars, ‘Crimes Against Peace’ and International Law, 196.
- 23.
Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trials: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II, 89.
- 24.
Neil Boster and Robert Cryer, Documents on the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Charter, Indictment, and Judgement, 43–45.
- 25.
Solis Horwitz, “The Tokyo Trial,” International Conciliation 465 (November 1950): 505.
- 26.
Aleksandra Babovic, “Japan’s Share of Responsibility in World War Two Through Legal Lenses: Selective and Exclusive Justice at IMTFE,” Kobe Law Review 49 (2005), 11.
- 27.
Indictment, Appendix D, Section Thirteen in Neil Boister and Robert Cryer, eds., Documents on the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Charter, Indictment and Judgements, 62.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Higgins to Fihelly, Weekly Report, January 21, 1946, RG331.
- 30.
Neil Boister and Robert Cryer, Documents on the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Charter, Indictment, and Judgement.
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Babovic, A. (2019). The Hegemonic Narrative of the Pacific War: Japan’s Conspired and Aggressive War. In: The Tokyo Trial, Justice, and the Postwar International Order. New Directions in East Asian History. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3477-1_4
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