hankyoreh

The Citizens Association on Imperial Japan’s Labor Mobilization and MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society’s branch in the Gwangju and South Jeolla region hold a press conference on Aug. 2 in Gwangju where they denounce interference in the process of compulsory execution of measures to compensate victims of forced labor mobilization. (Yonhap News)

“The argument that liquidating [the Korean assets of Japanese companies] would wreck Korea-Japan relations amounts to browbeating the victims into giving up their case,” said Seita Yamamoto, a 69-year-old Japanese attorney who has long represented victims in postwar damages litigation against the Japanese government. Yamamoto made the remarks during a series of emails exchanged with the Hankyoreh on July 26 and July 28.

After the South Korean Supreme Court ruled in Oct. 2018 that Japanese companies should compensate Koreans who had been conscripted for forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule over Korea, the decision aroused widespread criticism in the Japanese public. That prompted Yamamoto and his fellow attorneys to publish a book (“It Wasn’t Complete, and It’s Not Over”) presenting a legal analysis of the legitimacy and historicity of the Korean Supreme Court’s decision. Yamamoto’s interview with the Hankyoreh is presented below.

Seita Yamamoto, a Japanese attorney specializing in postwar reparations cases

Yamamoto: When I was a college student studying Japanese history, I participated in the support movement for Son Jin-du, a Korean atomic bomb victim who stowed away to Japan in order to receive treatment, in 1972. I also assisted Kim Jong-gap, a Korean Japanese individual who was a victim of forced labor, with his lawsuit for the verification of his Japanese nationality. It was much later that I realized that these trials were the beginning of postwar reparations trials. Afterward, I met Korean Japanese activist Song Du-hoe and took part in preparations for postwar reparations trials, such as that related to the Ukishima Maru incident, which Song had been carrying out since his days as a judicial trainee. It wasn’t that there was a particular reason, but that someone who didn’t even know the phrase “postwar reparations” somehow got in the middle of it.

Yamamoto: I see the Supreme Court of Korea’s majority opinion that reparations regarding illegal activities were not included in the Treaty on Basic Relations as a “traditional judgment.” As someone who has debated the Japanese government in trials, I find the court’s minority opinion that South Korea simply relinquished its right to diplomatic protection through the Treaty on Basic Relations and that individuals’ right to claim damages was not nullified familiar as well. The Japanese court’s judgment that “everything,” including victims’ right to claim damages, was resolved through the Treaty of San Francisco, the China-Japan joint statement, and the Treaty on Basic Relations, and that this is why victims cannot claim damages in court, is the unusual one and an interpretation that goes against international law.

Yamamoto: The reason the Japanese government overlooked reconciliation between Chinese victims and offending companies was probably economic. This is a clear double standard.

Yamamoto: The argument that liquidation would break down ties between South Korea and Japan has surfaced in Japan, in Korea, and from within each country’s civil society, but I don’t understand what it means. What does “breakdown” mean here? Would it be like the situation between Russia and Ukraine? Does anyone really believe that if the liquidation of assets held by offending companies in Korea takes place, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces would land on Dokdo or carry out a missile attack against Seoul?

Inversely, the present situation in which the South Korean ambassador to Japan cannot even meet with the Japanese prime minister already indicates a breakdown, considering what’s usual between friendly nations. An argument that brings up the possibility of a “breakdown” over and over threatens the victims, insinuating that going further would lead them to trouble and coaxing them to give up.

A solution that begins with the idea that the South Korean government should “avoid a breakdown” when both the Japanese government and offending companies are refusing to apologize is bound to fail. If the Japanese side has no intention of apologizing, and the South Korean government does not intend to resolve the issue by centering victims as a principle, it seems like the implementation of the legal procedure, liquidation, would be inevitable.

By Jung In-hwan, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]