1 61 Minshū 1188, 1969 Hanrei Jihō 31 (Sup. Ct. Apr. 27, 2007), available at <http://www.courts.go.jp/hanrei/pdf/20070427134258.pdf> (in Japanese), <http://www.courts.go.jp/english/judgments/text/2007.04.27-2004.-Ju-.No..l658.html> (English translation).

2 1969 Hanrei Jihō 38 (Sup. Ct. Apr. 27, 2007), available at <http://www.courts.go.jp/hantei/pdf/20070427165434.pdf> (in Japanese). Kō Hanako is a pseudonym akin to the Jane Roe usage.

3 Japan's Supreme Court is staffed by fifteen justices who ordinarily hear cases in fixed, five-member panels. The two panels here had no overlapping personnel. All Supreme Court justices are assisted by a single pool of research judges who regularly draft court decisions.

4 Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China, P.R.C.-Japan, Sept. 29, 1972, at <http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/china/joint72.html>.

3 Treaty of Peace with Japan, Sept. 8, 1951, Art. 2, 3 UST 3169, 136 UNTS 45.

6 Three cases were summarily disposed of contemporaneously with the rulings; since April, at least two other cases have been dismissed based upon the rulings.

7 Norimitsu, Onishi, Japan Court Rules Against Sex Slaves and Laborers, N.Y. Times, Apr. 28, 2007, at A8Google Scholar.

8 At some sites, more than half the workers died in the mere span of months. William, Underwood, Chinese Forced Labor, the Japanese Government and the Prospects for Redress, Japan Focus, July 8, 2005 Google Scholar, at <http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/1693>. The quoted statistics also exclude victims, estimated in the thousands, kidnapped for forced labor purposes who died while in Chinese detention camps or prior to the sea voyage to Japan. Id. For a broader historical background on Japanese forced labor, see Petra, Schmidt, Japan's Wartime Compensation: Forced Labour, 2 Asia-Fac J. Hum. Rts. & L. 1 (2000)Google Scholar.

9 The litigation is summarized at 1969 Hanrei Jihō 45.

10 The High Court decision is published at 1865 Hanrei Jihō 62. ¥5 million was equivalent to U.S.$45,000 at the time of the decision.

11 The phrasing “believed to be caused by” is the Court's.

12 In contrast to the forced labor decision, the Court's decision in this case does not provide historical detail or context regarding the expansive regime of sexual slavery during Imperial Japan's midcentury wars. In any event, despite decades of governmental denial and ongoing efforts for revisionism, the historical record is amply established, albeit with sparse official documentation. See, e.g., Yuki, Tanaka, Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation (2002)Google Scholar.

Also, especially because the author of this comment is a U.S. citizen, it is essential to introduce the less often noted history of sexual violence committed by Allied occupation forces upon Japanese women during and after the Battle of Okinawa. See id., ch. 5.

13 The litigation is summarized at 1969 Hanrei Jihō 44.

14 Hague Convention [No. IV] Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Oct. 18,1907,36 Stat. 2277, 1 Bevans 637, available at <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague04.htm>. The stance here is consistent with the German Federal Constitutional Court's interpretation. See Bardo, Fassbinder, Compensation for Forced Labour in World War II—the German Compensation Law of 2 August 2000, 3 J. Int'l Crim. Justice 253 (2005)Google Scholar.

15 Kent, Anderson & Yasuhiro, Okuda (trans.), Horei, Acton the Application of Laws, Law No. 10 of 1898, 3 Asian-Pac.L. & Pol'y J. 230 (2002)Google Scholar.

16 For history and background, see Matsumoto, Katsuyoshi, ‘Kokka Mutōseki no Hōri ‘to Mimpōten [ The Principle of Sovereign Immunity and Civil Law], 292 Rltsumeikan L.J. 317 (1925)Google Scholar (2003 no. 6), available at <www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/law/lex/03-6/matsumoto.pdf>.

17 The case is published at Shōmu Geppō 51-11-46 and 1804 Hanrei Jihō 50.

18 Treaty of Peace, Apr. 28, 1952, ROC-Japan, Art. II, 138 UNTS 3.

19 This approach was perhaps unprecedented. Prior Supreme Court panels have presented similar holdings, but not verbatim reproductions. Correspondence between author and Teruki Tsunemoto, professor of constitutional law, Hokkaido University, Nov. 12, 2007 (on file with author).

20 Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China participated in the negotiations of the San Francisco Treaty, and neither joined as a party, owing to the complicated diplomacy surrounding the just-ended Chinese revolution.

21 The Court lists nearly a dozen bilateral treaties as examples.

22 For example, the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty. See infra text accompanying note 23.

23 In this regard, the Tokyo High Court's ruling, which was premised on the actual applicability of the Treaty in the present case, was overturned.

24 The quoted text is from English Web site of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See supra note 4. The justices, of course, were looking at the Japanese language text. See infra note 25.

25 The Japanese text——could fairly be translated as “it renounces demands for war reparations” (with the its dropped and an s added at the end of reparation). Thus, while ambiguity is more evident in the Japanese phrasing than in the official English translation, see supra note 4, the purported ambiguity is still barely apparent.

26 Even a concise bibliography of English language texts, articles, and materials on forced labor and sexual slavery during Japan's midcentury wars, including discussions and debates concerning the victims and their efforts to achieve justice, would overflow the pages allotted for this note. A bibliography that included East Asian language materials— or that widened the topic to include issues such as those concerning former POWs, victims of Japanese and Allied force bombings (conventional and atomic), or victims of Japanese biological and medical experimentation— would require a full-length AJIL article.

27 While Germany's postwar remembrance and reparations are often held up as a benevolent opposite of Japan's escapism, one also needs to consider the implications of “victor's justice” and whether wrongful acts by Allied forces have been adequately remembered and addressed. In The Japanese Court, Mitsubishi and Corporate Resistance to Chinese Forced Labor Redress, Japan Focus, Mar. 29, 2006 Google Scholar, at <http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/1636>, William, Underwood presents The contrast with the German approach. As to Allied atrocities Google Scholar, see, for example, John, W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War (1986)Google Scholar; Mark, Selden, A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities and the American Way of War from the Pacific War to Iraq, Japan Focus, May 2, 2007 Google Scholar, at <http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2414>. Regarding comfort women operations provided by Japan for Allied occupation forces, see Tanaka, supra note 12, ch. 6.

28 See, e.g., Kelly, D. Askin, Prosecuting Wartime Rape and Other Gender-Related Crimes Under International Law: Extraordinary Advances, Enduring Obstacles, 21 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 288 (2003)Google Scholar.

29 As noted above, supra note 25, the weakness of the claim of ambiguity is evident even in a generous reading of the Japanese language text.

30 See supra text accompanying note 24.

31 See, for example, the Court's 2007 decision finding no violation of freedom of conscience in a case where a teacher was penalized for refusing to play the national anthem during a school entrance ceremony, X v. Tokyo Metro Bd. of Educ, 1962 Hanrei Jihō 3 (Sup. Ct. Feb. 27, 2007), or its 1995 decision upholding the constitutionality of de jure discrimination against illegitimate children in the Japanese Civil Code, 49 Minshū 1789 (Sup. Ct. July 5, 1995).

32 The expression of one thing is the exclusion of another. Black's Law Dictionary 581 (6th ed. 1990)Google Scholar.

33 William, Underwood & Kang, Jinn, Japan's Top Court Poised to Kill Lawsuits by Chinese War Victims, Japan Focus, Mar. 2, 2007 Google Scholar, at <http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2369>.

34 See Onishi, supra note 7.

35 The ruling profoundly undermines Prime Minister Abe's recent attempt to deny Japanese government complicity in wartime sexual slavery. See id; Norimitsu, Onishi, Japan Repeats Denial of Role in World War II Sex Slavery, N. Y. Times, Mar. 17, 2007, at A4Google Scholar. But the debate in Japan regarding World War II history—in particular, how Japan's wrongdoing will be portrayed in state-sanctioned public school history texts—remains alive and well. See, e.g., Norimitsu, Onishi, Okinawans Protest Japan s Plan to Revise Bitter Chapter of World War II, N.Y. Times, Oct. 7, 2007, at A6Google Scholar.

36 This framework, built in Eric, Yamamoto, Interracial Justice (1999)Google Scholar, is skillfully developed in Kristl, K. Ishikane, Korean Sex Slaves' Unfinished Journey for Justice: Reparations from the Japanese Government for the Institutionalized Enslavement and Mass Military Rapes of Korean Women During World War II, 29 U. Haw. L. Rev. 123 (2006)Google Scholar.

37 See, e.g., Harry, N. Scheiber, Taking Responsibility: Moral and Historical Perspectives on the Japanese War-Reparations Issues, 20 Berkeley J. Int'l L. 233 (2002)Google Scholar.

38 See Hwang Geum Joo v. Japan, 413 F.3d45 (D.C. Cir. 2005); John, R. Crook, Contemporary Practice of the United States, 99 AJIL 902 (2005)Google Scholar; In re World War II Era Japanese Forced Labor Litigation, 114 F.Supp.2d 939 (N.D. Cal.2000); Sean, D. Murphy, Contemporary Practice of the United States, 95 AJIL 139 (2001)Google Scholar.