Venteicher Rare Book Room

The aim of this new collection of essays is to engage in analysis beyond the familiar victor's justice critiques. The editors have drawn on authors from across the world including Australia, Japan, China, France, Korea, New Zealand and the United Kingdom with expertise in the fields of international humanitarian law, international criminal law, Japanese studies, modern Japanese history, and the use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The diverse backgrounds of the individual authors allow the editors to present essays which provide detailed and original analyses of the Tokyo Trial from legal, philosophical and historical perspectives. Several of the essays in the collection are based on the authors extensive archival research in Japan, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, providing rich insights into Japanese societal attitudes towards the Trial, biological experimentation by the Japanese Army in China, as well as the trial of Korean prison guards and prosecutions for rape and sexual assault in the post-war period. Some of the essays deal with particular participants in the Trial, examining the role of individual judges, and the selection of defendants and the decision not to prosecute the Emperor. Other essays analyse the Trial from a legal perspective, and address its impact on concepts such as command responsibility, conspiracy and war crimes. The majority of the essays seek to identify and address some of the forgotten crimes in the Tokyo Trial. These include crimes committed in China and Korea (particularly the activities of the infamous Unit 731), crimes committed against comfort women, and crimes associated with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the conventional firebombing of other Japanese cities and the illicit drug trade in China. Finally, the collection includes a number of essays which consider the importance of studying the Tokyo Trial and its contemporary relevance. These issues include an examination of the way in which academics have written about the Trial over the last 60 years, and an analysis of some of the lessons that can be drawn for international trials in the future.

In order to ensure its absolute authority, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (1946–1948), the Japanese counterpart of the Nuremberg Trial, adopted a three-tier structure for its interpreting: Japanese nationals interpreted the proceedings, second-generation Japanese-Americans monitored the interpreting, and Caucasian U.S. military officers arbitrated the disputes. The first extensive study on the subject in English, this book explores the historical and political contexts of the trial as well as the social and cultural backgrounds of the linguists through trial transcripts in English and Japanese, archival documents and recordings, and interviews with those who were involved in the interpreting. In addition to a detailed account of the interpreting, the book examines the reasons for the three-tier system, how the interpreting procedures were established over the course of the trial, and the unique difficulties faced by the Japanese-American monitors. This original case study of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal illuminates how complex issues such as trust, power, control, and race affect interpreting at international tribunals in times of conflict.

In the years since the Japanese war crimes trials concluded, the proceedings have been colored by charges of racism, vengeance and guilt. In this controversial book, Tim Maga contends that in the trials good law was practiced and evil did not go unpunished.

The Tokyo International Military Tribunal (IMT) is not frequently discussed in the literature on international criminal law, and it is often thought that it was little more (and possibly less) than a footnote to the Nuremberg proceedings. This work seeks to dispel this widely-held belief, by showing the way in which the Tokyo IMT was both similar and different to its Nuremberg counterpart, the extent to which the critiques of the Tokyo IMT have purchase, and the Tribunal's contemporary relevance. The book also shows how the IMT needs to be treated, not just as one overarching entity, but also as being made up of different sets of people, who made up the prosecution, the defense and the judges. These disagreed with each other, and at times internally, over the way in which the trial should proceed, and the book shows how each had an impact on the proceedings. The book is a comprehensive legal analysis of the Tokyo IMT, covering its law, theory, practice, and the lessons it may teach to those prosecuting and defending international crimes today. It also places the trial in its political and historical context. The work is based in part on extensive archival research undertaken by the authors, which has unearthed large quantities of documents that have previously been ignored by those who have studied the Tribunal.

Yuma Totani assesses the historical significance of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) - commonly called the Tokyo trial - established as the eastern counterpart of the Nuremberg trial in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

While the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg has been at the centre of scholarly attention, the Tokyo Tribunal has for decades been largely neglected. This is surprising insofar as this tribunal was a well-organized Allied endeavour and prefigured the international courts and tribunals of our day. Eleven national teams were sent to Tokyo between 1946 and 1948 to bring about justice in the aftermath of the Pacific War. This volume offers an innovative approach to the Tokyo Tribunal as an arena of transcultural engagement. It contextualizes legal agents as products of transnational forces, constituted through dialogues about legal concepts and processes of faction-making. The endeavour was challenged by different national policies, divergent legal traditions, and varying cultural perceptions of the task ahead. Contributors are Milinda Banerjee, Anja Bihler, Neil Boister, David M. Crowe, Kerstin von Lingen, Narrelle Morris, Hitoshi Nagai, Valentyna Polunina, Ann-Sophie Schoepfel, Lisette Schouten, James Burnham Sedgwick, Yuki Takatori and Urs Matthias Zachmann.

"War Crimes: Japans' World War II Atrocities" demands a prominent place in military history. Mr. Thurman and his daughter, Christine Sherman, bring to life the atrocities which the tribunal was formed to prosecute. War crimes remain a part of world history, and the world should know about them.

Advocates of the 'Nuremberg legacy' emphasize the positive impact of the individualization of responsibility and the establishment of an historical record through judicial procedures for 'war crimes'. This legacy has been cited in the context of the establishment and operation of the UN ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals in the 1990s, as well as for the International Criminal Court. The problem with this legacy, however, is that it is based solely on the experience of West Germany. Furthermore, the effect of the procedure on post-conflict society has not been empirically examined. This book does this by analyzing the Tokyo Trial, the other International Military Tribunal established after the Second World War, and its impact on post-war Japan. Madoka Futamura examines the short- and long-term impact of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the Tokyo Trial), on post-war Japan, in order to improve the understanding of and strategy for ongoing international war crimes tribunals. War Crimes Tribunals and Transitional Justice will be of much interest to students of war crimes, international law, transitional justice and international relations in general.