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This book investigates the political context and intentions behind the trialling of Japanese war criminals in the wake of World War Two. After the Second World War in Asia, the victorious Allies placed around 5,700 Japanese on trial for war crimes. Ostensibly crafted to bring perpetrators to justice, the trials intersected in complex ways with the great issues of the day. They were meant to finish off the business of World War Two and to consolidate United States hegemony over Japan in the Pacific, but they lost impetus as Japan morphed into an ally of the West in the Cold War. Embattled colonial powers used the trials to bolster their authority against nationalist revolutionaries, but they found the principles of international humanitarian law were sharply at odds with the inequalities embodied in colonialism. Within nationalist movements, local enmities often overshadowed the reckoning with Japan. And hovering over the trials was the critical question: just what was justice forthe Japanese in a world where all sides had committed atrocities?
List of contents
JUSTICE IN TIME OF TURMOIL. WAR CRIMES TRIALS IN ASIA IN THE CONTEXT OF DECOLONIZATION AND COLD WAR KERSTIN VON LINGEN/ ROBERT CRIBB.- COLONIALISM, ANTI-COLONIALISM AND NEO-COLONIALISM IN CHINA: THE OPIUM QUESTION AT THE TOKYO WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL NEIL BOISTER.- THE FRENCH PROSECUTION AT THE IMTFE: ROBERT ONETO, INDOCHINA AND THE REHABILITATION OF FRENCH PRESTIGE BEATRICE TREFALT.- DECOLONIZATION AND SUBALTERN SOVEREIGNTY: INDIA AND THE TOKYO TRIAL MILINDA BANERJEE.- THE LEGACY OF EXTRATERRITORIALITY AND THE TRIAL OF JAPANESE WAR CRIMINALS IN THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA ANJA BIHLER.- THE BURMA TRIALS OF JAPANESE WAR CRIMINALS, 1946-1947 ROBERT CRIBB.- COLONIZATION AND POST-COLONIAL JUSTICE - U.S. AND PHILIPPINE WAR CRIMES TRIALS AFTER WWII IN MANILA WOLFGANG FORM.- JUSTICE AND DECOLONIZATION: WAR CRIMES ON TRIAL IN SAIGON, 1946-1950 ANN-SOPHIE SCHOEPFEL.- NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES' WAR CRIME TRIALS IN THE FACE OF DECOLONIZATION LISETTE SCHOUTEN.- AUSTRALIA'S PURSUIT OF THE FORMOSAN AND KOREAN 'JAPANESE' WAR CRIMINALS DEAN ASZKIELOWICZ.- FROM TOKYO TO KHABAROVSK - SOVIET WAR CRIMES TRIALS IN ASIA AS COLD WAR BATTLEFIELDS VALENTYNA POLUNINA.- RESURRECTING DEFEAT: INTERNATIONAL PROPAGANDA AND THE SHENYANG TRIALS OF 1956 ADAM CATHCART
About the author
Kerstin von Lingenis Researcher and Lecturer at Heidelberg University, Germany in the 'Asia and Europe in a Global Context' Cluster of Excellence. Since 2013, she has led an independent research group, 'Transcultural Justice: Legal Flows and the Emergence of International Justice within the East Asian War Crimes Trials, 1945-1954'. She is the 2016 laureate of the International Chair for the History of the Second World War, awarded by the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Summary
This book investigates the political context and intentions behind the trialling of Japanese war criminals in the wake of World War Two. After the Second World War in Asia, the victorious Allies placed around 5,700 Japanese on trial for war crimes. Ostensibly crafted to bring perpetrators to justice, the trials intersected in complex ways with the great issues of the day. They were meant to finish off the business of World War Two and to consolidate United States hegemony over Japan in the Pacific, but they lost impetus as Japan morphed into an ally of the West in the Cold War. Embattled colonial powers used the trials to bolster their authority against nationalist revolutionaries, but they found the principles of international humanitarian law were sharply at odds with the inequalities embodied in colonialism. Within nationalist movements, local enmities often overshadowed the reckoning with Japan. And hovering over the trials was the critical question: just what was justice forthe Japanese in a world where all sides had committed atrocities?
Additional text
“This edited collection is an erudite and empirically rich volume that recasts Allied war crimes trials in Asia, and reconsiders questions of global justice and empire, decolonization, and Cold War history. … Kerstin von Lingen and her contributors have added tremendously to our understanding of war crimes trials as an interdisciplinary field of global history, and importantly, as a key legal conjuncture in the unraveling of European empire in Asia.” (Andrew Levidis, H-Soz-Kult, hsozkult.de, July, 2018)
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"This edited collection is an erudite and empirically rich volume that recasts Allied war crimes trials in Asia, and reconsiders questions of global justice and empire, decolonization, and Cold War history. ... Kerstin von Lingen and her contributors have added tremendously to our understanding of war crimes trials as an interdisciplinary field of global history, and importantly, as a key legal conjuncture in the unraveling of European empire in Asia." (Andrew Levidis, H-Soz-Kult, hsozkult.de, July, 2018)
