Towards the Post-institutional Phase of the Tokyo Tribunal: Narratives, Sentences, Detentions

Babovic, Aleksandra

doi:10.1007/978-981-13-3477-1_7

Aleksandra Babovic⁵

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

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Abstract

Babovic argues that the judgement did not represent the end of the Tokyo Tribunal but its transition into the post-institutional phase of the Tribunal. This chapter observes the majority judgement and dissenting opinions as instances that offer legal and historical narratives for each stakeholder in the process. After the judgement is rendered, the window of opportunity opens for the review of the sentences which provokes the controversy regarding the international character of the Tribunal. The chapter looks at MacArthur’s decision not to review the sentences of Class A war criminals sentenced to death and correct the injustices in sentencing. Already in 1948, the US foreign policy towards Japan started to shift, but it failed to be reflected in the looser policies regarding war criminals.

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Notes

1.
Sandra Wilson, Japanese War Criminals: The Pursuit of Justice After Second World War (New York: Columbia University Press) 2017, 84.
2.
Neil Boister and Robert Cryer, eds., Documents on the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: Charter, Indictment, and Judgements (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2008), 626.
3.
Edward Dumbauld, “Dissenting Opinions in International Adjudication,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review (1942), 934.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 233.
6.
Yuma Totani, “Japanese Receptions of Separate Opinions at the Tokyo Trial,” The Council on East Asian Studies, Yale, April 7, 2015, 17.
7.
Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 223.
8.
John Pritchard, ed. The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: With an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide, Vol 105 (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), 35–73.
9.
Pritchard, The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: With an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide, Vol 106, 473.
10.
Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 219.
11.
Ibid.
12.
John Pritchard, ed. The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: With an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide, Vol 105, 123–131.
13.
Pritchard, The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: With an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide, Vol 108, 1111.
14.
Pritchard, The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: With an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide, Vol 108, 1038–1039.
15.
Yoshinobu Higurashi, Tōkyō saiban (Kodansha: Tokyo, 2008), 272.
16.
Kirsten Sellars, “Crime Against Peace” and International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 235.
17.
Ibid.
18.
Pritchard, The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: With an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide, Vol 106, 609.
19.
Pritchard, The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: With an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide, Vol 106, 483.
20.
James Burnham Sedgwick, “The Trial Within: Negotiating Justice at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946–1948,” (PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2012), 259. https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0072876 (accessed November 14, 2017).
21.
Esmein, “Le juge Henry Bernard au Procès de Tokyo,” Vingtième Siècle 59 (Juliet–Septembre 1998): 4.
22.
Sedgwick,” The Trial Within,” 211.
23.
Totani, “Japanese Receptions of Separate Opinions at the Tokyo Trial,” 210.
24.
Ibid., 210.
25.
Ibid.
26.
Higurashi, Tōkyō saiban, 267.
27.
Sedgwick,” The Trial Within,” 208.
28.
Ibid.
29.
Sellars, “Crime Against Peace” and International Law, 235.
30.
Sedgwick,” The Trial Within,” 208.
31.
Justice Northcroft’s words, March 18, 1947, cited in Sellars, ‘Crime Against Peace” and International Law, 235.
32.
Ibid.
33.
Nortcroft to Nash, March 5, 1946, in Robin Kay, ed., Documents on New Zealand External Relations Volume II: The Surrender and Occupation of Japan (Wellington: Historical Publications Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1982), 1531.
34.
Sedgwick, “The Trial Within,” 203.
35.
Ibid., 199–201.
36.
Ibid.
37.
Ibid., 207.
38.
Sellars, “Crime Against Peace” and International Law, 235.
39.
Higurashi, Tōkyō saiban, 266.
40.
Richard H. Minear, Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 162.
41.
Ibid., 163.
42.
The Allied Council for Japan (ACJ) was established in Tokyo to allow the US, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China to consult the Supreme Commander, however devoid of any decisive power, and with meetings scheduled for every two weeks.
43.
FEC 007/7, “The Trial of Japanese War Criminals,” April 26, 1946, in Makoto Iokibe, ed., Occupation of Japan: Planning Documents, 1942–1945 (Tokyo: Maruzen), microfiche, 4-A-3.
44.
Minear, Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 161.
45.
FEC, Letter from Beverly M. Coleman to General Douglas MacArthur, November 11, 1948 in NARA II, RG 43, General Records, March 1946–1949, Box 1.
46.
Minear, Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 160–161.
47.
Ibid., 168–169.
48.
FEC, Minutes, Committee No. 5, War Criminals, Minutes, 13th Meeting, December 10, 1948 in RG 43, General Records, March 1946–1949, Box 1.
49.
Minear, Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial, 170.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Ibid.
52.
Ibid., 171.
53.
Sedgwick, “The Trial Within,” 280.
54.
US Supreme Court, Hirota v. MacArthur, 338 US 197 (1948), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/338/197/case.html (accessed on September 20, 2017).
55.
Sedgwick, “The Trial Within,” 281.
56.
Ibid., 280.
57.
Ibid.; 282–283; FEC, Minutes, Committee No. 5, War Criminals, Minutes, 13th Meeting, December 10, 1948 in RG 43, General Records, March 1946–1949, Box 1.
58.
Kim C. Priemel and Alexa Stiller, eds., Reassessing the Nuremberg Military Trials: Transitional Justice, Trial Narratives, and Historiography (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 254.
59.
Ibid., 256.
60.
Ibid.
61.
For extensive analysis of NMTs see Peter Maguire, Law and War: An American Story (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Kim C. Priemel and Alexa Stiller, eds., Reassessing the Nuremberg Military Trials: Transitional Justice, Trial Narratives, and Historiography (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014).
62.
Peter Maguire, Law and War: An American Story (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 163.
63.
Ibid.
64.
Memorandum of Conversation, by Miss Katherine B. Fite of the Office of the Legal Advisor (Fahy), Washington, August 6, 1947, in FRUS, Far East, Volume VI (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1972), 279–280.
65.
Ibid.
66.
Awaya Kentarō, “Selecting Defendants at the Tokyo Trial,” in Yuki Tanaka, Tim McCormack, and Gerry Simpson, eds., Beyond Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trials Revisited (Martinus Leiden: Nijhoff, 2011), 57.
67.
FEC, Transcript of Minutes, Committee No. 5, War Criminals, Minutes, 9th Meeting, March 31, 1948, in RG 43, General Records, March 1946–1949, Box 1.
68.
Ibid.
69.
“Explanatory Notes by Mr. George F. Keenan,” March 25, 1948 in FRUS, 1948. The Far East and Australasia, 1948, 717–719.
70.
Ibid.
71.
Ibid.
72.
FEC, Minutes, Committee No. 5, War Criminals, Minutes, 10th Meeting, October 11, 1948 in RG 43, General Records, March 1946–1949, Box 1.
73.
Ibid.
74.
Ibid.
75.
FEC, Transcript of Minutes, FEC, 146th Meeting, March 31, 1949 in RG 43, General Records, March 1946–1949, Box 1.
76.
Ibid.
77.
Ibid.
78.
Valentyna Polunina, “From Tokyo to Khabarovsk: Soviet War Crimes Trials in Asia as Cold War Battlefields.” In Kerstin von Lingen, eds., War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945–1956 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
79.
Ibid.

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Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
Aleksandra Babovic

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Babovic, A. (2019). Towards the Post-institutional Phase of the Tokyo Tribunal: Narratives, Sentences, Detentions. 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_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3477-1_7
Published: 05 January 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-3476-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-3477-1
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