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By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter
The Supreme Court ruled on May 24 that the 1965 Korea-Japan Claim Agreement did not nullify individual claims to damages for illegal actions by Japan during its colonial rule of Korea. The ruling comes after years of ineffective handling by the South Korean government.
When the Agreement was being drafted, Seoul took the position that indemnification should be paid for personal claims, calling for US$360 million in payments to individuals. Tokyo, in contrast, objected the use of the term “fund for claims,” insisting that it be written instead as “fund for economic cooperation.” Ultimately, the government succeeded in arranging US$300 million in uncompensated and US$200 million in compensated funding for claims against Japan. It distributed part of this fund in 300,000 won (about US$270) payouts to surviving family members of 8,552 deceased victims during the years from 1975 to 1977. The decision was a fairly rational one, given that individuals were not in a position then to sue the Japanese government or companies for damages.
The problem is that even after the claim fund arranged for by the government was limited to “conscriptee accounts receivable” property rights on wages, bonds, and savings, it was not specified whether individuals retained claims not addressed in the agreement. These included claims from comfort women, atomic bomb survivors, Sakhalin conscriptees, and Siberian detainees that had not been confirmed at the time or that arose due to illegal wartime actions. Indeed, during the Claim Agreement process, Seoul confirmed to Tokyo that personal claims were included in the Agreement and would be nullified in the future. It did not clarify whether the claims that expired were limited to property or included all others as well. At the time, the Economic Planning Board and Finance Ministry suggested to the negotiation team and Blue House that they should address the issue of individual claims, but this appears not to have been done actively.
Discussions did take place at the time, with the Japanese government stating that the agreement needed to clarify which claims expired. But the contents and outcome of the discussions does not appear in any of the records released to date.
“The lack of understanding of individual claims was problematic, as was the passive response to issues raised by Japan and the failure to make the scope of individual claims clear,” said Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities senior researcher Kim Min-cheol.
Choi Bong-gyu, head of the Foreign Ministry’s first Northeast Asia division, said, “In some respects, the agreement then was a political compromise on individual claims that was made under a very complex set of circumstances.
"It looks as though the judgment on personal claims was something along the lines of the government receiving [money] on their behalf and compensating them at home," Choi said.
　
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