Reparation for War Crimes
Law of Treaties

The Japanese Supreme Court in a unanimous judgment rejected a claim for damages of 27.5 million yen from the Nishimatsu Construction Co. filed by two Chinese forced labourers, ruling that the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communique bars Chinese individuals from seeking war compensation through the courts. Reversing the judgment by the Hiroshima High Court, the Supreme Court said the San Francisco Peace Treaty signed in 1951 was the framework that set the standards of war reparations for Japan and other countries, and that the treaty was based on the premise that the right to claim compensation for any wartime action, including the right of individuals, would be abandoned. It said the Japan-China Joint Communique was signed under the same framework as the peace treaty, concluding that individuals' rights to claim war reparations have been abandoned. However, in the same judgment as well as another judgment in a sex slavery case delivered on the same day, the Japanese court acknowledged that former wartime sex slaves and forced laborers from China had been coerced by the Japanese military or industry.

Earlier, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said, "As a solemn political and diplomatic document signed by the Chinese and Japanese Government, Sino-Japanese Joint Statement constitutes the political basis of the restoration and development of the post-war Sino-Japanese relations. Neither party should unilaterally interpret the major principle or issues in the document, including judicial interpretation." Following the Supreme Court judgment, the Foreign Ministry spokesman denounced the Japanese court's interpretation of the Chinese government's abandonment of its right to war reparations as "illegal and invalid", saying China strongly opposed the "arbitrary" interpretations of the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement. He said the Chinese government's declaration in the Joint Statement on waiving the right for war compensations from Japan was "a political decision made out of an aim to help the two peoples coexist in amity".

See previous post.