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Forgiveness by Law and Dilemmas on the Nature of the War Criminal Program in Japan

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The Tokyo Trial, Justice, and the Postwar International Order

Part of the book series: New Directions in East Asian History ((NDEAH))

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Abstract

This chapter looks at the nature of the San Francisco Peace Treaty and its provisions when it comes to war criminals which are source of contradiction. Babovic introduces the concepts of clemency and parole and their meaning for the war criminal program in Japan. The analysis of the US institutional disputes points out at the deep discrepancies when it comes to the approach towards the character of the war criminal program. Lastly, the chapter looks at the connectedness between the German and Japanese war criminal programs even in the post-institutional phase of the Tribunal.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    FEC, Minutes of Meeting, FEC, 191st Meeting, April 20, 1950 in RG 43, Records Related to FEC, Minutes of Meetings, February 1946–1949, Box 3.

  2. 2.

    FEC, Minutes of Meeting, FEC, 193rd Meeting, May 18, 1950 in RG 43, Records Related to FEC, Minutes of Meetings, February 1946–1949, Box 3.

  3. 3.

    Ibid.

  4. 4.

    Message, Acheson, State Department to SCAP, August 30, 1950 in NARA, RG 84, Japanese War Crimes Cases, Box 26.

  5. 5.

    Letter, U. Alexis Johnson, Department of State, Far Eastern Bureau to William J. Sebald, US Political Advisor to Japan, June 23, 1950, in NARA, RG 84, Japanese War Criminals, Box 1.

  6. 6.

    Tosh Minohara, ed., The History of US-Japan Relations: From Perry to Present (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 116.

  7. 7.

    Draft Basic Civil Affairs/Military Government Criteria Among Those to be Encompassed in a Japanese Peace Treaty, War Department, August 29, 1947, FRUS, Far East, Volume VI, Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1972.

  8. 8.

    “The Effect of Blanket Clemency for Italian War Criminals on NA’s Position Regarding Post-Treaty Clemency for Japanese War Criminals,” April 5, 1950, in NARA, RG 59.

  9. 9.

    Sandra Wilson, Robert Cribb, Beatrice Trefalt, and Dean Aszkielowicz, Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice After the Second World War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 155.

  10. 10.

    Frederick S. Dunn, Peace Making and the Settlement with Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 59–62, 172–188; Michael Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 122–140.

  11. 11.

    “Commentary of Draft Treaty of Peace with Japan,” in NARA II, RG59.

  12. 12.

    Dunn, Peace Making and the Settlement with Japan, 125.

  13. 13.

    Wilson et al., Japanese War Criminals, 159–160.

  14. 14.

    Ibid.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 161.

  16. 16.

    Higurashi, Tōkyō saiban, 337.

  17. 17.

    Zachary D. Kaufman, United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 27–28.

  18. 18.

    Minutes, October 27, 1952, in NARA II, RG 220, Box 1, Folder: Minutes, M-6.

  19. 19.

    Kimie Hara, ed., The San Francisco and Its Legacies: Continuation, Transformation and Historical Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific (London: Routledge, 2014).

  20. 20.

    Jonathan H. Choi, “Early Release in International Criminal Law,” The Yale Law Journal 432 (2014), 1789.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 1801.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 1802.

  24. 24.

    Ibid. The author discusses early release in international criminal law that has started with the IMT at Nuremberg and IMTFE, to become more refined with the practice in modern international criminal tribunals—ICTY, ICTR, and ICC. Although he makes distinction between historical cases of criminal justice in Nuremberg and Tokyo as solely based on political and geopolitical grounds, his discussion is relevant as similar dilemmas could be traced in the parole system applied in the respective cases.

  25. 25.

    Kathleen Dean Moore, Pardons: Justice, Mercy, and the Public Interest, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989 cited in Austin Sarat and Nasser Husain, eds., Forgiveness, Mercy, and Clemency, Mercy, and Clemency (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 5.

  26. 26.

    Austin Sarat and Nasser Husain, eds., Forgiveness, Mercy, and Clemency, 6.

  27. 27.

    Austin Sarat and Nasser Husain, eds., Forgiveness, 7.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 11.

  29. 29.

    Note, SCAP, Legal Section to Department of State, March 27, 1952 in NARA, RG84, Japanese War Criminals, General Files, Box 26.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    Working Papers, A Board of Clemency and Parole for War Criminals, From Conrad Snow to the Legal Advisor, May 9, 1952, NARA, RG220, Box 1.

  32. 32.

    Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum, Transcript of Oral History Interview with Conrad E. Snow, Richard D. McKinzie, July 2, 1973, 6–7. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/snowce.htm#transcript (accessed on August 14, 2017).

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 11.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 15–16. According to the interview transcript, the Advisory Board for Clemency in Germany or the Peck Board had 40 days to review thousands of pages of transcripts of the trials and other legal documents in order to examine the suitability of the sentence.

  35. 35.

    Working Papers, A Board of Clemency and Parole for War Criminals, From Conrad Snow to the Legal Advisor, May 9, 1952, NARA, RG220, Box 1.

  36. 36.

    Telegram, Murphy, American Embassy, Tokyo to Secretary of State, July 31, 1952, in NARA, RG84, Japanese War Criminals, Box 1.

  37. 37.

    Telegram, Secretary of State to American Embassy, Tokyo, August 23, 1952 in NARA, RG84, Japanese War Criminals, Box 1.

  38. 38.

    Working Papers, CPB, NARA, RG220, Box 1.

  39. 39.

    Report of the Clemency and Parole Board for War Criminals, Minutes, January 15, 1953, NARA, RG220, Box 1, folder: Minutes CPB, M-12.

  40. 40.

    Martin Weil, “Robert D. Murphy, Diplomat, Advisor to Presidents, Dies,” Washington Post, January 11, 1978. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1978/01/11/robert-d-murphy-diplomat-adviser-to-presidents-dies/ca989305-de2d-457d-be31-2bf2f12391be/?utm_term=.e8f5bb4de395 (accessed on March 3, 2017).

  41. 41.

    Foreign Service Dispatch No. 654, US Embassy Tokyo to the Department of State, October 2, 1952, NARA, RG220, Box 1.

  42. 42.

    Repercussions on the German problem? Enclosed Letter of Resignation from Roger Kent to the President, Minutes, January 14, 1953, NARA, RG 220, Box 1, folder: Minutes CPB, M-12.

  43. 43.

    Ibid.

  44. 44.

    Ibid.

  45. 45.

    Ibid.

  46. 46.

    Ibid.

  47. 47.

    Peter Maguire, Law and War: An American Story (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 238.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., 239.

  49. 49.

    Ibid.

  50. 50.

    Ibid., 235. Otto Kranzbühler, defense counsel at Nuremberg, was one of the prominent figures behind this plan.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., 238.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    Telegram, Department of State to Tokyo, April 10, 1953, in NARA, RG84, War Criminals—General, Box 28.

  54. 54.

    Peter Maguire, Law and War, 213.

  55. 55.

    Telegram, David K. E. Bruce, American Embassy, Paris to HICOG Bonn, August 26, 1952 in NARA, RG84, War Criminals—General Files, Box 28.

  56. 56.

    Peter Maguire, Law and War, 243.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., 242–244.

  58. 58.

    Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, Department of State, November 10, 1954, in FRUS, 1952–1954, China and Japan, Vol IV, Part 2.

  59. 59.

    The Weekly Notes for Tokyo, December 5, 1953, in NARA, RG 84, Japanese War Criminals, Box 1.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    State Department legal advisor John Auchincloss to Geoffrey Lewis at the US Embassy in Bonn, January 28, 1954, RG59, Box 16 cited in Peter Maguire, Law and War: An American Story, 253–254.

  62. 62.

    Ibid., 254.

  63. 63.

    Memorandum, “General Amnesty for Japanese War Criminals,” February 16, 1954 in NARA, RG84, War Criminals—General Files, Box 28.

  64. 64.

    Ibid.

  65. 65.

    Wilson et al., The Japanese War Criminals: The Politics of Justice After the Second World War, 187.

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  1. Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

    Aleksandra Babovic

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Babovic, A. (2019). Forgiveness by Law and Dilemmas on the Nature of the War Criminal Program in Japan. 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_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3477-1_8

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