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Challenges the persistent orthodoxies of the Tokyo tribunal and provides a new framework for evaluating the trial, revealing its importance to international jurisprudence.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. The Allied War Crimes Policy, the Indictment, and Court Proceedings: 1. The framework of the trial; 2. Charges of crimes against peace; 3. The Japanese system of government; 4. Individual roles in the making of the war and the overall conspiracy; 5. Counts on murder, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity; 6. Accountability of war crimes; Part II. Law and Jurisprudence of the Judgments and Separate Opinions: 7. The majority judgment: crimes against peace; 8. An alternative perspective on accountability for crimes against peace: the two Webb judgments; 9. The majority judgment on war crimes; 10. An alternative Tokyo judgment: the draft Webb judgment on war crimes; 11. The dissenting opinions by Justices Bernard and Roeling; 12. Pal's 'judgment', or dissenting opinion, on crimes against peace; 13. Pal's treatment of war crimes charges; 14. The concurring opinions of Justices Webb and Jaranilla; Conclusion.
About the author
David Cohen directs the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University, California (formerly the War Crimes Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley, where Cohen taught for thirty-five years before moving the Center to Stanford in 2013). He publishes on international criminal law, transitional justice, human rights, classics, and comparative legal history, while also directing human rights, rule of law, and accountability projects in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.Yuma Totani is a historian of modern Japan and presently teaches at the University of Hawaii. Her research interests are in World War II and war crimes trials in Asia and the Pacific. She is the author of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (2008) and Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945–1952 (Cambridge, 2015). She has received various fellowships, including a National Fellowship from the Hoover Institution (2016), the Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship (2012), and the Abe Fellowship (2011).
Summary
Like its Nuremberg counterpart, the Tokyo trial was foundational in the field of international law. However, the persistent notion of 'victor's justice' in the existing literature has made it difficult to objectively assess. Cohen and Totani redress this by providing a fresh perspective based on careful examination of the trial record.
