Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945-1952
Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945-1952

Author: Yuma Totani

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-02-16

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1107087627

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"Roman Law in the State of Nature offers a new interpretation of the foundations of Hugo Grotius' natural law theory. Surveying the significance of texts from classical antiquity, Benjamin Straumann argues that certain classical texts, namely Roman law and a specifically Ciceronian brand of Stoicism, were particularly influential for Grotius in the construction of his theory of natural law. The book asserts that Grotius, a humanist steeped in Roman law, had many reasons to employ Roman tradition and explains how Cicero's ethics and Roman law - secular and offering a doctrine of the freedom of the high seas - were ideally suited to provide the rules for Grotius' state of nature. This fascinating new study offers historians, classicists and political theorists a fresh account of the historical background of the development of natural rights, natural law and of international legal norms as they emerged in seventeenth-century early modern Europe"--

A History of War Crimes Trials in Post 1945 Asia-Pacific
A History of War Crimes Trials in Post 1945 Asia-Pacific

Author: Zhaoqi Cheng

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-06-06

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 9811366977

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Written by the Director of the Tokyo Trial Research Centre at China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University, this book provides a unique analysis of war crime trials in Asia-Pacific after World War II. It offers a comprehensive review of key events during this period, covering preparations for the Trial, examining the role of the War Crimes Commission of the United Nations as well as offering a new analysis of the trial itself. Addressing the question of conventional war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace (such as the Pearl Harbor Incident) and violations of warfare law, it follows up with a discussion of post-trial events and the fate of war criminals on trial. Additionally, it examines other Japanese war crime trials which happened in Asia, as well as considering the legacy of the Tokyo trial itself, and the foundation of a new Post-War International Order in East Asia.

Detention Camps in Asia
Detention Camps in Asia

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-05-20

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9004512578

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Detention camps in Asia have held hundreds of thousands of people – political dissidents, prisoners of war, and civilian populations. This volume examines why states detain, the conditions of detention, and the effects of detention systems on society as a whole.

Imperial Gateway
Imperial Gateway

Author: Seiji Shirane

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2022-12-15

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1501765590

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In Imperial Gateway, Seiji Shirane explores the political, social, and economic significance of colonial Taiwan in the southern expansion of Japan's empire from 1895 to the end of World War II. Challenging understandings of empire that focus on bilateral relations between metropole and colonial periphery, Shirane uncovers a half century of dynamic relations between Japan, Taiwan, China, and Western regional powers. Japanese officials in Taiwan did not simply take orders from Tokyo; rather, they often pursued their own expansionist ambitions in South China and Southeast Asia. When outright conquest was not possible, they promoted alternative strategies, including naturalizing resident Chinese as overseas Taiwanese subjects, extending colonial police networks, and deploying tens of thousands of Taiwanese to war. The Taiwanese—merchants, gangsters, policemen, interpreters, nurses, and soldiers—seized new opportunities for socioeconomic advancement that did not always align with Japan's imperial interests. Drawing on multilingual archives in six countries, Imperial Gateway shows how Japanese officials and Taiwanese subjects transformed Taiwan into a regional gateway for expansion in an ever-shifting international order. Thanks to generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Program and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Interpreters and War Crimes
Interpreters and War Crimes

Author: Kayoko Takeda

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-03-23

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 1000365220

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Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book raises new questions and provides different perspectives on the roles, responsibilities, ethics and protection of interpreters in war while investigating the substance and agents of Japanese war crimes and legal aspects of interpreters’ taking part in war crimes. Informed by studies on interpreter ethics in conflict, historical studies of Japanese war crimes and legal discussion on individual liability in war crimes, Takeda provides a detailed description and analysis of the 39 interpreter defendants and interpreters as witnesses of war crimes at British military trials against the Japanese in the aftermath of the Pacific War, and tackles ethical and legal issues of various risks faced by interpreters in violent conflict. The book first discusses the backgrounds, recruitment and wartime activities of the accused interpreters at British military trials in addition to the charges they faced, the defence arguments and the verdicts they received at the trials, with attention to why so many of the accused were Taiwanese and foreign-born Japanese. Takeda provides a contextualized discussion, focusing on the Japanese military’s specific linguistic needs in its occupied areas in Southeast Asia and the attributes of interpreters who could meet such needs. In the theoretical examination of the issues that emerge, the focus is placed on interpreters’ proximity to danger, visibility and perceived authorship of speech, legal responsibility in war crimes and ethical issues in testifying as eyewitnesses of criminal acts in violent hostilities. Takeda critically examines prior literature on the roles of interpreters in conflict and ethical concerns such as interpreter neutrality and confidentiality, drawing on legal discussion of the ineffectiveness of the superior orders defence and modes of individual liability in war crimes. The book seeks to promote intersectoral discussion on how interpreters can be protected from exposure to manifestly unlawful acts such as torture.

Japanese War Criminals
Japanese War Criminals

Author: Sandra Wilson

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 0231542682

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Beginning in late 1945, the United States, Britain, China, Australia, France, the Netherlands, and later the Philippines, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China convened national courts to prosecute Japanese military personnel for war crimes. The defendants included ethnic Koreans and Taiwanese who had served with the armed forces as Japanese subjects. In Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East tried Japanese leaders. While the fairness of these trials has been a focus for decades, Japanese War Criminals instead argues that the most important issues arose outside the courtroom. What was the legal basis for identifying and detaining subjects, determining who should be prosecuted, collecting evidence, and granting clemency after conviction? The answers to these questions helped set the norms for transitional justice in the postwar era and today contribute to strategies for addressing problematic areas of international law. Examining the complex moral, ethical, legal, and political issues surrounding the Allied prosecution project, from the first investigations during the war to the final release of prisoners in 1958, Japanese War Criminals shows how a simple effort to punish the guilty evolved into a multidimensional struggle that muddied the assignment of criminal responsibility for war crimes. Over time, indignation in Japan over Allied military actions, particularly the deployment of the atomic bombs, eclipsed anger over Japanese atrocities, and, among the Western powers, new Cold War imperatives took hold. This book makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the construction of the postwar international order in Asia and to our comprehension of the difficulties of implementing transitional justice.

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal
The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal

Author: David Cohen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-11-22

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 1108577512

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Like its Nuremberg counterpart, the Tokyo Trial was foundational in the field of international law. However, until now, the persistent notion of 'victor's justice' in the existing historical literature has made it difficult to treat it as such. David Cohen and Yuma Totani seek to redress this by cutting through persistent orthodoxies and ideologies that have plagued the trial. Instead they present it simply as a judicial process, and in so doing reveal its enduring importance for international jurisprudence. A wide range of primary sources are considered, including court transcripts, court exhibits, the majority judgment, and five separate concurring and dissenting opinions. The authors also provide comparative analysis of the Allied trials at Nuremberg, resulting in a comprehensive and empirically grounded study of the trial. The Tokyo Tribunal was a watershed moment in the history of the Asia-Pacific region. This groundbreaking study reveals it is of continuing relevance today.

The Geography of Injustice
The Geography of Injustice

Author: Barak Kushner

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2024-03-15

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1501774034

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In The Geography of Injustice, Barak Kushner argues that the war crimes tribunals in East Asia formed and cemented national divides that persist into the present day. In 1946 the Allies convened the Tokyo Trial to prosecute Japanese wartime atrocities and Japan's empire. At its conclusion one of the judges voiced dissent, claiming that the justice found at Tokyo was only "the sham employment of a legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge." War crimes tribunals, Kushner shows, allow for the history of the defeated to be heard. In contemporary East Asia a fierce battle between memory and history has consolidated political camps across this debate. The Tokyo Trial courtroom, as well as the thousands of other war crimes tribunals opened in about fifty venues across Asia, were legal stages where prosecution and defense curated facts and evidence to craft their story about World War Two. These narratives and counter narratives form the basis of postwar memory concerning Japan's imperial aims across the region. The archival record and the interpretation of court testimony together shape a competing set of histories for public consumption. The Geography of Injustice offers compelling evidence that despite the passage of seven decades since the end of the war, East Asia is more divided than united by history.