Torture, War Crimes & Justice

LESSONS ON WAR CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY: BOOK DISCUSSION OF ALL THE MISSING SOULS: A PERSONALl HISTORY OF THE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNALS. 2/2, Noon-2:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: American Society of International Law (ASIL). Speakers: David Scheffer, Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law and director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law; former Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues. Location; Diane Orentlicher, Professor of International Law, American University; former Deputy for War Crimes Issues, U.S. Department of State; Jane Stromseth Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, former Senior Advisor for Rule of Law and International Humanitarian Policy, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy; Moderator: Djurdja Lazic, International Legal Materials Managing Editor, American Society of International Law.

INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE (ICJ). 2/2, 6:00-7:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: American Society of International Law (ASIL). Speaker: Thomas Buergenthal, former judge on the ICJ.

IN SEARCH OF ACCOUNTABILITY: JUSTICE AFTER NUREMBERG. 2/2, 7:00-10:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Speakers: Harold Koh, legal adviser to State Department; David Scheffer, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues; William Shawcross, author of "Justice and the Enemy: From the Nuremberg Trials to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed”; Moderator: Michael Abramowitz, director of the Committee on Conscience at Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

ALL THE MISSING SOULS: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL. 2/3, 7:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Politics and Prose Bookstore. Speaker: David Scheffer, senior adviser to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, President Clinton’s ambassador-at-large for war crimes, author.

The History Issues

TAIWAN’S COMFORT WOMEN: AN UNTOLD STORY. 5/4, 3:30-5:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: CNAPS Brookings. Speaker: Sandy Yu-Lan Yeh, CNAPS Visiting Fellow, Taiwan.

RECONCILIATION AND CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY ON WAR CRIMES. 5/4, 10:30am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: German Marshall Fund of the United States. Speaker: Ivo Josipovic, Croatian President.

INTERNATIONAL NAZI-ERA RECORDS INTERNET PORTAL LAUNCH. 5/5, 11:00am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: The National Archives. Speakers: Archivist of the United States David Ferriero; State Department Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Douglas Davidson; and Digitalization Partnership Coordinator for the National Archives James Hastings.

WOMEN AND WAR. 5/5, 4:00-4:30pm, 5/6, 8:00am-4:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: USIP. Speakers: Book launch and symposium.

Summer's End

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS & FUTURE PATHS FOR U.S. POLICY. 9/1, 9:00-11:30am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Speakers: Steven Bipes, Executive Director, Brazil-U.S. Business Council; Chris Israel, Managing Partner, PCT Government Relations; Stan McCoy, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation; Peter Rashish, Vice President, Europe and Eurasia, U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Jon Santamauro, Counsel, Sidley Austin LLP; Emery Simon, Counselor, Business Software Alliance; Ron Somers, President, U.S.-India Business Council; Jeremie Waterman, Senior Director, Greater China, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

ANOTHER RISING CHINA: WILL TAIWAN ESCAPE THE STRAITS? 9/1, Noon-2:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speakers: William Rowe, Professor, Johns Hopkins University; Charles Horner, Author, Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate. Moderator: Eric Brown, Research Fellow, Hudson Institute.

EMPIRE FOR LIBERTY: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM FROM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TO PAUL WOLFOWITZ. 9/1, Noon-2:00, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Cato Institute. Speakers: Richard Immerman, Author Empire for Liberty; Robert Kagan, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Derek Leebaert, Partner, MAP AG; Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute.

TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN BALANCE: COMPARING PROCESSES, WEIGHING EFFICACY. 9/1, 2:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Speakers: Authors of Transitional Justice in Balance, Tricia Olsen, Ph.D. candidate of Political Science, University of Wisconsin/Madison; Leigh Payne, Professor of Sociology and Latin America, University of Oxford; Andrew Reiter, Ph.D. Candidate of Political Science, University of Wisconsin/Madison; Neil Kritz, Senior Scholar in Residence, Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, USIP; David Backer, Program Officer, USIP.

FAULT LINES: HOW HIDDEN FRACTURES STILL THREATEN THE WORLD ECONOMY. 9/2, 4:00-5:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: International Monetary Fund (IMF). Speakers: Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance, Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, Author Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy; Sebastian Mallaby, Author of More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite; Min Zhu, Special Adviser to the Managing Director, IMF; Caroline Atkinson, Director, External Relations Department, IMF.

THE INTERNATIONAL MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN AND ITS IMPACT ON TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS. 9/3, 8:00-9:30am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS). Speakers: Thomas Risse, Freie Universitat Berlin; Arne Schroer, Universitat Passau. 

Only after 65 years

APP advises members of congress and members of the Washington policy community on issues where Japan's war history intersects with current efforts to establish a successful East Asian regional security strategy.

Last week Representative Mike Honda (D-CA) introduced H. Res 1567 to honor American former prisoners of war and their unending quest for justice. The resolution also commends the Government of Japan for finally offering an apology and creating an invitation program for the surviving POWs.

None of what Japan has done is perfect. Indeed, the Japanese Ambassador [above] has refused to put his oral apology in writing. And the most important apology requested by the POWs, from the Japanese companies that enslaved them, has been met with silence.

But the government's actions are a step. And a longer step than the denials made by former Prime Minister Taro Aso of his family mining company's use of POW slave labor.

On Saturday, the Mainichi Shimbun announced that the Japanese government would have the program that Mr. Honda commended Tokyo for only a few days earlier. There has been no official announcement.


68 Years after the Bataan Death March, Government for the First Time Ever to Invite 6 Former American POWs to Japan in September 

Mainichi, Eve., July 31, 2010 [Translation by William Brooks, APP Senior Fellow]

In April 1942 during World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army forced approximately 70,000 prisoners of war from America and other countries to walk approximately 100 kilometers on the island of Bataan in the Philippines. Many died along the way in what came to be known as the Bataan Death March. The government will invite some former U.S. POWs and their families to come to Japan in mid-September. This will be the first time the government has invited former POWs to come to Japan and a sign of postwar conciliation between Japan and the United States. 

Japan's Justice Ministry

According to a new paper, Transfer of Power at Japan’s Justice Ministry, by Japan legal scholar Larry Repeta, "one of the more startling appointments to the new Cabinet is that of Yokohama lawyer Chiba Keiko to be Minister of Justice."

He writes that:

the authority of the Ministry is great, with responsibility to enforce criminal laws, protect individual rights, manage the immigration system, and generally oversee the legal system itself, including preparation and review of draft legislation. Ms. Chiba’s appointment should result in a sharp change in policy. She brings with her a history of more than two decades in the Diet in which she opposed nearly all LDP initiatives related to Ministry operations."

If there was any doubt on this score, she wiped it away in formal comments released on September 16, the day the new Cabinet took office. In her first message to the nation as Minister, Chiba declared that her mission is to help build a society that respects human rights and a judicial system that is “close to the people” (kokumin ni mijika na shiho). To achieve this, she listed three specific steps. First is the establishment of a new human rights agency. Second is ratification of so-called “Optional Protocols” to human rights treaties. Third is creating transparency in criminal interrogations.

Implementing these measures will not be easy. Establishing an independent commission and ratifying treaty protocols requires Diet action. Although the DPJ and its allies hold strong majorities, there will surely be voices seeking to protect the status quo. Progress on these issues will indicate the degree to which Japan’s new governors are willing to expend political capital on poorly understood measures related to human rights protection. Whatever the result, there is no doubt that this government takes a fundamentally different view of its obligations under Japanese law and human rights treaties from what we have seen in the past.

Transfer of Power at Japan’s Justice Ministry by Lawrence Repeta, Omiya Law School in Japan, presently a visiting scholar at the University of Washington, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 44-2-09, November 2, 2009.