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Scholarly and Public Responses to “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War”: The Current State of the Problem, A Report by Concerned Scholars
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
J. Mark Ramseyer's 2020 article “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War” provoked numerous highly critical responses from the general public and the scholarly community. Our group composed a report that analyzed the article and concluded that it should be retracted because it misused and distorted evidence. After more than two years of investigation, during which Ramseyer published a response to his critics, the editors of the International Review of Law & Economics decided not to retract the article, but to keep a statement of concern attached to the final published version. In this follow-up report, we explore the legacy of the original article as it relates to problems of academic integrity and historical denialism in public discourse. We highlight Ramseyer's persistent strategies of obfuscation and suggest how historians might continue to address the problem of deliberately misleading scholarship masquerading as “academic freedom.”
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References
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1 J Mark Ramseyer, “Contracting for sex in the Pacific War” International Review of Law and Economics, 65 (March 2022), published online December 1, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2020.105971
2 Mark Ramseyer, “Recovering the Truth about the Comfort Women,” JAPAN Forward January 12, 2021. https://japan-forward.com/recovering-the-truth-about-the-comfort-women/ (accessed September 2, 2023).
3 While the discussions surrounding Ramseyer's article are often limited to Japan-Korean historical relations, the “comfort woman system” was not limited to trafficking women from colonial Korea. It is beyond the scope of our discussion here to discuss the substantial evidence establishing this historical fact.
4 Our definition of “denialist” follows Tessa Morris-Suzuki, who uses the term to describe the lobby groups that arose in Japan in the 1990s that “rejected evidence of the forced recruitment of ‘comfort women’ and more generally sought to justify Japan's wartime actions.” Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Un-remembering the Massacre: How Japan's ‘History Wars’ are Challenging Research Integrity Domestically and Abroad.” October 25, 2021. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2021/10/25/un-remembering-the-massacre-how-japans-history-wars-are-challenging-research-integrity-domestically-and-abroad/. Notably, Japanese historical associations, cited below, use the same descriptor, kyohi shugi, for Ramseyer's work.
5 Amy Stanley, Hannah Shepherd, Sayaka Chatani, David Ambaras, and Chelsea Szendi Schieder, “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War”: The Case for Retraction on Grounds of Academic Misconduct.“ Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 19, no. 5 (2021) https://apjjf.org/2021/5/ConcernedScholars.html. See also, for example, Andrew Gordon and Carter Eckert, ”Statement by Andrew Gordon and Carter Eckert concerning J. Mark Ramseyer, ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War,‘“ February 17, 2021, https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37366904; Timothy Amos, Maren Ehlers, Anne McKnight, David Ambaras, and Ian Neary,” Doing Violence to Buraku History: J. Mark Ramseyer's Dangerous Inventions’. “The Asia-Pacific Journal, Japan Focus 19, no. 9 (2021), https://apjjf.org/2021/9/Amos-Ehlers-McKnight-Ambaras-Neary.html.
6 Emergency Statement by Japan-based Researchers and Activists Criticizing a New Form of Denialist Discourse on Japanese Imperial Military “Comfort Women” (English translation at http://fightforjustice.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/FFJ_ENGLISH_20210327.pdf (accessed August 31, 2023). The original Japanese statement is available on the Japanese Society for Historical Studies site under https://www.nihonshiken.jp/category/activities/statement/page/2/ (accessed September 2, 2023).
7 Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Unwriting the Wrongs: History, Trauma and Memories of Violence in Germany and Japan,” in Tina Burrett and Jeff Kingston, eds., Routledge Handbook of Trauma in East Asia, (Routledge, 2023), p. 57. Despite the magnitude of this challenge, many scholars have contributed responses to the original article and later “Response” in the years since their publication. For example, Lee Yong-Shik, Natsu Taylor Saito, and Jonathan Todres, “The Fallacy of Contract in Sexual Slavery: A Response to Ramseyer's ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War,’” Michigan Journal of International Law 42, no. 2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.36642/mjil.42.2.fallacy; Hosaka Yuji, “‘Contracting for Sex?’: ‘True Story’ of the So-Called ‘Comfort Women’ during World War II,” Journal of East Asia and International Law 14, no. 1 (2021); Min Pyong Gap,“Introduction: A Critical Evaluation of Mark Ramseyer's Arguments for ‘Comfort Women’ as Voluntary Prostitutes with Labor Contracts,” Journal of International Women's Studies 24, no. 9 (2022). Scholars have also responded to Ramseyer's 2022 “response to my critics”: see Lee Yong-Shik, “On Ramseyer's Response to the Critics of ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War,’” Law and Development Review 15, no. 1 (2022) and Kang, “Ramseyer's History Denialism and the Efforts to ‘Save Ramseyer.’”
8 J. Mark Ramseyer, “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War: A Response to My Critics” (January 4, 2022), Harvard Law School John M. Olin Center Discussion Paper No. 1075, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4000145 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4000145, pp. 1, 12.
9 Ramseyer, “Contracting for Sex,” p. 2
10 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 34.
11 Ramseyer, “Contracting for Sex,” p. 6.
12 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” pp. 16-22. Ramseyer has also recently insisted that his original article would have stood up to scrutiny if only the IRLE had allowed him to include a section “debunking Seiji Yoshida's fallacious stories.” Kenji Yoshida, “Great Minds Don't Always Think Alike: What Happens When a Harvard Professor Challenges the Status Quo,” JAPAN Forward, August 15 2023, https://japan-forward.com/great-minds-dont-always-think-alike-what-happens-when-a-harvard-professor-challenges-the-status-quo/ (accessed August 31, 2023). It is difficult to understand how an examination of this incident from the late twentieth century would have had any bearing on an argument that purported to be an analysis of contractual conditions during the Pacific War. However, if the conditions of publication in IRLE were so limiting that he believed they compromised the integrity of his argument, he should have chosen another venue.
13 See his discussion in Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 35. Ramseyer also makes basic errors of fact that cast doubt on his understanding of the period. For example, on two separate occasions he refers to a U.S. military document that discusses conditions from 1943 through mid-1944 and suggests that this reflects the situation in “the last months of the war.” Ibid, p. 38, 50.
14 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 41. On Ramseyer's writing on zainichi Koreans and use of Yamada's work, see Morris-Suzuki, “Unwriting the Wrongs”, p. 55.
15 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” pp. 9-10. Ramseyer cites the Yahoo News Japan article with the parenthetical addition “(originally JB Press),” also without a url. We have tracked this article to https://jbpress.ismedia.jp/articles/-/64369 (accessed August 31, 2023). For the alternative translation by Lee in a JAPAN Forward article (again, URL not included): “Controversy Over Harvard Article Can't Erase the Facts of Comfort Women Contracts,” April 3, 2021, https://japan-forward.com/bookmark-controversy-over-harvard-article-cant-erase-the-facts-of-comfort-women-contracts/ (accessed August 31, 2023). For an explanation of the original source, and Ramseyer's misrepresentation, see Sung Hyun Kang, “Ramseyer's History Denialism and the Efforts to ‘Save Ramseyer’: Focusing on Critique of ”A Response to My Critics“ (2022),” Journal of International Women's Studies 24, no. 9 (2022), p. 7.
16 “Osaki…herself assures the reader…”: Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 31.“Had a rough sense”: p. 35. Full original quote: Yamazaki Tomoko, Sandakan hachiban shōkan (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1972), p. 87. For the translation: Yamazaki Tomoko, Sandakan Brothel No. 8: An Episode in the History of Lower-Class Japanese Women, trans. Karen Colligan-Taylor (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 1999), p. 60.
17 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 41. Curiously, the word “dragooned” appears in this paper thirty-seven times.
18 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 36
19 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 36.
20 Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” p. 37.
21 “IRLE Response,” International Review of Law and Economics 65 (Available online 18 January 2023, Version of Record 15 February 2023), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818823000030.
22 Eyal Winter, “Comments on ‘Contracting for sex in the Pacific War’ by Mark Ramseyer,” International Review of Law and Economics 65 (2021). More than a thousand other economists and several hundred game theory experts, including Nobel Prize laureates, have also criticized Ramseyer's flawed application of the methodology and demanded the article be retracted. See “Letter by Concerned Economists Regarding ”Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War“ in the International Review of Law and Economics,” http://chwe.net/irle/letter/ (accessed August 30, 2023) For statements in support of the letter, including by the twelve editors of the American Political Science Review, see https://chwe.net/irle/.
23 Yoshimi Yoshiaki, “Response to ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’ by J. Mark Ramseyer,” tr. Emi Koyama, Norma Field, and Tomomi Yamaguchi, International Review of Law and Economics, August 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2023.106158
24 Yoshimi Yoshiaki, “Response to ‘Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War’ by J. Mark Ramseyer,” tr. Emi Koyama, Norma Field, and Tomomi Yamaguchi, SSRN Scholarly Paper (Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, February 8, 2022), https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4029325.
25 Yoshimi, “Response” (IRLE pre-print), pp. 6, 7.
26 Yoshimi, “Response” (IRLE pre-print), p. 17.
27 For a list of articles, see “All posts tagged ‘J Mark Ramseyer,‘” JAPAN Forward, https://japan-forward.com/tag/j-mark-ramseyer/ (accessed September 4, 2023). North Korean sympathizer: “Sayaka Chatani teaches at the University of Singapore and sympathetically researches a pro-North Korea organization in Japan. Chatani has been an enthusiastic attacker against Professor Ramseyer and [his collaborator] Professor Arima.” Jason Morgan, “The Comfort Women: Scholars Fighting Historical Truth in East Asia,” JAPAN Forward, February 10, 2023, https://japan-forward.com/the-comfort-women-scholars-fighting-historical-truth-in-east-asia/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
28 Emergency Statement by Japan-based Researchers and Activists.
29 Kenji Yoshida, “Great Minds Don't Always Think Alike: What Happens When a Harvard Professor Challenges the Status Quo,” JAPAN Forward, August 15, 2023, https://japan-forward.com/great-minds-dont-always-think-alike-what-happens-when-a-harvard-professor-challenges-the-status-quo/ (accessed September 4, 2023)
30 Yasuo Naito, “Tokyo Outlook: Comfort Women: History Wars Continue in Search of the Truth,” JAPAN Forward, August 21 2023, https://japan-forward.com/tokyo-outlook-comfort-women-history-wars-continue-in-search-of-the-truth (accessed September 4, 2023). Originally in Japanese: “Rekishisen wa mada tsuzuku,” Sankei Shimbun, August 21, 2023, https://www.sankei.com/article/20230821-BY7DP7XWVNNK7IJ5MZZDQLI4PQ/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
31 For example, he writes, “‘They [the critics] are neglecting the effort to read Japanese sources.‘” Ibid. (In Japanese: “(hihan suru) karera wa Nihongo no bunken o yomu doryoku o okotatte iru” (批判する）彼らは日本語の文献を読む努力を怠っている.“
32 Morris-Suzuki, “Unwriting the Wrongs.” p. 56.
33 For example, see Ramseyer, “A Response to My Critics,” pp. 39, 41, confirming our corrections of his erroneous readings of original Japanese documents.
34 Paula R. Curtis, “Taking the Fight for Japan's History Online: The Ramseyer Controversy and Social Media,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 21, no. 3, issue 22 (2021), https://apjjf.org/2021/22/Curtis.html.
35 Song Sang-ho, “Harvard professor Ramseyer to revise paper on 1923 massacre of Koreans in Japan: Cambridge handbook editor,” Yonhap News Agency, February 20, 2021, https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210220002400325 (accessed September 4, 2023). The handbook's co-editor apologized for “an innocent and very regrettable mistake on our part,” and told a reporter, “We assumed that Professor Ramseyer knows the history better than us. In the meantime, we have learnt a lot about the events and we sent a list of detailed comments on the paper that were written by professional historians and lawyers.” The excised portions of Ramseyer's handbook chapter track with sections of a 2021 article he published in the European Journal of Law and Economics in which he took at face value (1) claims about Korean terrorist activities during the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake based on, e.g., a confession made under duress by a man who was facing execution by a vigilante mob and was indeed executed immediately after having made his confession; and (2) the assertions about Korean criminality proffered by a prewar Japanese prosecutor of “thought crimes” whose job was to identify and root out Korean “subversives.” Morris-Suzuki, “Unwriting the Wrongs,” pp. 55-56, 57. For the 2021 article: J. Mark.Ramseyer, “Social Capital and the Problem of Opportunistic Leadership: The Example of Koreans in Japan,” European Journal of Law and Economics 52 (2021): 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-020-09682-2. After the journal's editors received expressions of concern, they asked Ramseyer to correct his article; he made only some cosmetic changes to source citations and statements of basic historical fact. J. Mark Ramseyer, “Correction to: Social capital and the problem of opportunistic leadership: the example of Koreans in Japan,” European Journal of Law and Economics 52 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-021-09718-1.
36 Joseph Yi, “Comfort Women: Debating Lee Seok-ki and Mark Ramseyer,” JAPAN Forward, May 29, 2023, https://japan-forward.com/comfort-women-debating-lee-seok-ki-and-mark-ramseyer/ (accessed September 3, 2023).
37 “HxEast Asia: Trials of comfort women scholars,” June 3, 2023, https://youtu.be/FVXn8DQJmdM?t=2291 (accessed September 4, 2023).
38 Frances An, “Complex Truths on Korean Comfort Women” JAPAN Forward, June 16, 2023, https://japan-forward.com/complex-truths-on-korean-comfort-women/ (accessed September 4, 2023). In a second report, the same author notes that she disagrees with Ramseyer's comments without ever describing their specific content. Frances An, “Truth-Seeking is a Moral Imperative in Scholarship: A Case Study in the Comfort Woman History Wars,” Heterodox Academy blog, August 10, 2023, https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/truth-seeking-is-a-moral-imperative-in-scholarship-a-case-study-in-the-comfort-women-history-wars/ (accessed September 4, 2023). Note that “comfort woman history wars” is the preferred framing of the Japanese right – it was first introduced by Sankei Shimbun in a series of publications in 2014. See the discussion of the term in Tomomi Yamaguchi, The “History Wars” and the “Comfort Woman” Issue: Revisionism and the Right-wing in Contemporary Japan and the U.S.“ The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus Vol. 18, Issue 6, No. 3 (March 2020) https://apjjf.org/2020/6/Yamaguchi.html.
39 Jason Morgan, “Opening the Comfort Women Issue to Free Debate Rooted in Historical Documents,” JAPAN Forward, July 19, 2023, https://japan-forward.com/opening-the-comfort-women-issue-to-free-debate-rooted-in-historical-documents (accessed August 30, 2023).
40 Andrew Salmon, “Sparks keep flying off comfort women brouhaha,” Asia Times, June 3, 2022, https://asiatimes.com/2022/06/sparks-keep-flying-off-comfort-women-brouhaha/ (accessed August 30, 2023).
41 See Ibid, and also Joseph Yi and Joe Phillips, “‘Low Road Liberalism’ Censoring Public Discourses on Communist North Korea and Imperial Japan,” Society 60 (2023): 212-223.
42 Joseph Yi, “Competing Liberal Approaches to Problematic Speech: South Korea,” Cambridge Open Engage (August 22, 2023), p. 5. https://doi.org/10.33774/apsa-2023-sn8l4. It is not clear why this discussion of American academics is included in a paper that is ostensibly about the suppression of problematic speech in South Korea.
43 Also see Yi and Phillips, “‘Low Road Liberalism’,” which asserts that Ramseyer “has been denounced as a war crimes denialist” for an article that “researched the contractual dynamics between Japanese and ethnic Korean comfort women and brothel owners, finding large advances to the women, 1- or 2-year maximum terms, and contractural [sic] freedom to leave earlier if they generated sufficient revenues” (p. 218). This treats his findings as legitimate and omits the substance of historians' objection to the article.
44 Jason Morgan, “Comfort Women: Professor Mark Ramseyer Speaks Out as Truth Wins,” JAPAN Forward, February 12, 2023, https://japan-forward.com/comfort-women-professor-mark-ramseyer-speaks-out-as-truth-wins/ (accessed August 30, 2023).
45 “Jon Māku Ramuzaiyā kyōju no kōen,” Sugita Mio ofisharu burogu, August 23, 2023, https://ameblo.jp/miosugita-blog/entry-12817424962.html (accessed September 4, 2023).