More than 400 legal experts worldwide say S. Korean comfort women ruling is “historic”

Posted on : 2021-04-08 16:54 KST Modified on : 2021-04-08 16:54 KST
The legal experts presented a joint statement to the Seoul Central District Court
A joint statement by 410 legal experts from nine countries including South Korea, Japan, China and Italy called a South Korean court ruling in January awarding compensation to survivors of Japanese military wartime sexual slavery a “historic ruling that opens up the future of international law.”
A joint statement by 410 legal experts from nine countries including South Korea, Japan, China and Italy called a South Korean court ruling in January awarding compensation to survivors of Japanese military wartime sexual slavery a “historic ruling that opens up the future of international law.”

A South Korean court ruling in January awarding compensation to survivors of Japanese military wartime sexual slavery was a “historic ruling that opens up the future of international law,” according to a joint statement by 410 legal experts from nine countries including South Korea, Japan, China and Italy.

The legal experts presented the statement bearing their signatures to the Seoul Central District Court, which is scheduled to proceed with sentencing on April 27 in a second suit filed by military sexual slavery survivors to demand compensation.

In an online press conference Wednesday, the legal experts said they supported the South Korean court judgment ordering the Japanese government to compensate “comfort women” survivors.

In their statement, they stressed, “When a domestic trial is the last means of recourse for victims in connection with an inhumane and illegal act by another state, their right to receive a trial must be respected.”

They also said, “This latest judgment [on Jan. 8], which did not recognize the applicability of state [sovereign] immunity, was not in violation of international law, but is consistent with evolving customary international law.”

They went on to insist that the Japanese government “immediately enforce the ruling.” State immunity is a customary international law concept that holds that a court in one country is not allowed to try another country for sovereign acts.

During the press conference, Japanese attorney Seita Yamamoto said the South Korean ruling “provided a new means of restoring human rights when they have been violated by a state.”

“I took part in the statement because I felt I had the responsibility as a jurist to communicate this to society,” he added.

Lee Sang-hee, who is representing the military sexual slavery survivors awaiting the court’s sentencing on April 27, said, “The victims have been fighting nonstop to shift the center of gravity in the international order from states to human beings.”

“This lawsuit is part of that,” Lee added.

A total of 410 people from nine countries took part in the joint statement, including 334 attorneys and 76 researchers. No fewer than 192 of the participants were Japanese.

Also included among the attorneys was Joachim Lau, a representative in the so-called “Ferrini case” in Italy, which preceded the South Korean court in refusing to recognize state immunity.

In 2004, an Italian court ruled to award compensation in a case filed against the German government by Luigi Ferrini, an Italian subjected to forced labor by Germany during World War II.

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter

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