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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attends a memorial service for the victims of atomic bombing during WWII at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Aug. 6.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe claimed on Aug. 6 that South Korea was “breaching an international pact with its unilateral violation of the South Korea-Japan Claims Settlement Agreement.”

Speaking in a press conference that day after attending a victims’ memorial ceremony for the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Abe was quoted by Kyodo News as saying that the South Korean government “ought to first honor [the Claims Settlement Agreement],” adding that he “strenuously insist[s] on an appropriate response from South Korea.” This marks the first time Abe has publicly spoken about South Korea-Japan relations since a Japanese Cabinet decision on Aug. 2 to remove South Korea from the country’s white list.

Was the Supreme Court decision in violation of international law? Abe and other Japanese officials have repeatedly claimed that the South Korean Supreme Court violated the Claims Settlement Agreement signed between the two sides in 1965 with its ruling ordering the payment of compensation for forced labor mobilization. But with the Supreme Court having reached its decision based on a different interpretation of the “illegality of Japan’s colonial occupation,” there is no basis for Japan’s denunciation of it as a violation of international law.

At the heart of the Supreme Court’s ruling last October was an unambiguous interpretation of Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea as having been inherently illegal. South Korea also argued this illegality when the Claims Settlement Agreement was being signed in 1965, but Japan refused to acknowledge it. Consequently, Japan declined to recognize claims at all; the US$500 million that it provided South Korea at the time was designated as an “independence congratulation fund” or an “economic cooperation fund” rather than as compensation for colonial occupation. Japan is claiming that when South Korea accepted this money, it agreed not to claim compensation; the issue of compensation of colonial occupation was thus “put to bed” without any real discussions between the two sides.

In contrast, the South Korean Supreme Court explicitly mentioned the illegality of the colonial occupation, ruling that compensation should be provided for the forced mobilization that imperial Japan practiced illegally from 1910 to 1945. This decision once again raised the issue of South Korea and Japan’s differing interpretations of the Claims Settlement Agreement.

“The Supreme Court ruling mentioned a new issue not included in the scope of the Claims Settlement Agreement – namely that of compensation for colonial rule – and Japan is once again trying to shove everything into its existing framework where everything was resolved by the Claims Settlement Agreement,” explained Nam Ki-jeong, a professor at Seoul National University.

“It is interference in domestic affairs for the Japanese government to make remarks that seem to repudiate South Korea’s separation of powers, and something like holding a briefing for Japanese companies that have received compensation claims and stopping them from compensating forced labor victims could be seen as an actual violation of international law through the improper exercise of diplomatic protections,” Nam said.

Yang Kee-ho, a professor at Sungkonghoe University, also pointed out the weakness of Tokyo’s argument.

“In 1999, the ILO [International Labour Organization] sent an official message to the Japanese government demanding that they provide compensation to forced labor victims and work to provide restitution, and the trend in international law since the 2000s has been the view that individual claims do not expire as the result of negotiations between countries,” he said.

Why is Japan so intent on blocking the liquidation of Japanese companies’ South Korean assets? At the moment, Tokyo is refusing to take part in any diplomatic discussions with Seoul. It is signaling its unwillingness to enter dialogue until the South Korean government takes measures to block the liquidation (sale) of assets seized from Japanese companies by forced labor survivors and takes it upon itself to resolve the issue of compensation for forced labor. The Blue House announced that it had sent special envoys to Japan twice last month, but that Japan had refused to speak with them and rejected a US mediation plan.

Yang Kee-ho interpreted the Abe administration’s vehement rejection of Japanese compensation to the forced labor mobilization survivors as being “based on the conclusion that this would break down the South Korea-Japan Claims Settlement Agreement framework, and that backing down on that would place Japan at a major disadvantage on the issue of resolving matters of colonial occupation with North Korea or the countries of Southeast Asia.”

The issue of diplomatic relations with North Korea is being seen as especially crucial. Abe, who has little to show in the way of results despite many years in office, hopes to leave behind a legacy of achieving final resolutions to the historic issues left behind by modern Japan by normalizing relations with Pyongyang – something predecessor Junichiro Koizumi was unable to achieve through his two visits to North Korea. To achieve this, Abe recently made a proposal to North Korea for dialogue without any preconditions.

Experts see Abe’s aims as being to use export controls and eviction from the white list as a way of pressuring South Korea to ensure that the beneficial terms of the 1965 Claims Settlement Agreement remain applicable to bilateral relations, while using that framework as a model for normalizing diplomatic relations with North Korea.

By Park Min-hee, staff reporter

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