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The Tokyo Tribunal, Justice Pal and the Revisionist Distortion of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Nakajima Takeshi
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Since the mid 1990s, Japan's neonationalist forces have made important gains: in education, culture and politics, as manifested notably in the activation of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and the popularity of the best-selling comic book Sensoron (On War) by cartoonist Kobayashi Yoshinori.

Japanese historical revisionists have contrasted their approach with what they term the ‘Tokyo Trial view of history’ and the ‘masochistic view of history’. These revisionists regard as ‘masochistic’ any characterisation of Japan's military advances in Asia during the pre-World War II period as an ‘invasion’. And they claim a ‘spell’ lingering from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (‘Tokyo Tribunal’) underlies this ‘masochistic view of history’. Arguing that the Tokyo Tribunal created and disseminated a false perception of the Greater East Asia War as ‘the war in which the liberal Allies defeated a fascist Japan’, the revisionists hold that denouncing and rejecting the Tribunal is the key to shaking off this ‘masochistic view of history’.

Type
Part 2: Topics of Historical Memory in Japan
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 11 , Special Issue S7: Course Reader No. 7. The Politics of Memory in Japan and East Asia , January 2013 , pp. 299 - 316
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

References

Notes

1 Translated by Kasahara Hikaru. Edited by Mark Selden.

2 Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, signed in Tokyo on 19 January 1946, amended 26 April 1946, TIAS 1589, 4 Bevans 20 (‘Tokyo Charter’).

3 United States et al v Araki Sadao et al in The Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial: The Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, with an Authoritative Commentary and Comprehensive Guide (2002) Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 36-7 (‘ Tokyo Major War Crimes Trialf.

4 Ibid Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 37 (emphasis in original).

5 Ibid Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 45.

6 Ibid Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 67.

7 Ibid Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 15.

8 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1069.

9 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1099.

10 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1069-70.

11 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1089.

12 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1111.

13 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1171-2.

14 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1180.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1172.

17 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1180.

18 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1090.

19 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 376.

20 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 428.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 429-46, 460-2.

24 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 473.

25 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 513.

26 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 524.

27 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 525.

28 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 526.

29 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 527.

30 Arnold J Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs 1932 (1933) 465 quoted in Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 527.

31 Ibid 467 quoted in Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, above n 3, Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 528.

32 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 524.

33 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 547(34)-(35).

34 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 548.

35 Ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 483 (emphases in original).

36 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 785(2)-(3) (emphases in original).

37 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 785(3).

38 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 785(20).

39 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 787.

40 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 785(29).

41 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 874-5.

42 ‘United States Note to Japan 26 November’ (1941) 5 Department of State Bulletin 461 (‘Hull Note’).

43 Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, above n 3, Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 978.

44 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 963.

45 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1038-9.

46 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 983.

47 See, e.g., ibid Vol 106, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 446 .

48 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 988.

49 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 692.

50 Ibid Vol 107, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 736.

51 Ibid.

52 See, eg, ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 983, 988, 1234.

53 Ibid Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 135 (emphasis omitted).

54 Ibid Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 146.

55 Ibid Vol 105, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 55.

56 Chūgoku Shimbun (Hiroshima, Japan), 4 November 1952.

57 Tanaka Masaaki, Nihon muzairon: shinri no sabaki [On Japan's Innocence: The Truth on Trial] (1952).

58 Ibid 28.

59 Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, above n 3, Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 988.

60 Ibid Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 983.

61 Tanaka Masaaki, Paru Hanji no Nippon Muzai-ron [Justice Pal's Discussion of Japan as Not Guilty] (1963).

62 Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, above n 3, Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1025.

63 Tanaka, Paru Hanji, above n 61, 165.

64 Tokyo Major War Crimes Trial, above n 3, Vol 108, Dissenting Opinion of Justice Pal, 1089.

65 Hayashi Fusao, Dai Tōa sensō kōteiron [Affirming the Greater East Asia War] (2nd ed, 2006) 341.

66 Tanaka, Paru Hanji, above n 61, 342.

67 Ienaga Saburo, ‘15-nen Sensō to Pāru Hanketsu-sho’ [The Fifteen Years’ War and Pal's Dissentient Judgment] in Ienaga Saburo, Sensō to Kyōiku o Megutte [On War and Education] (1973) 23-43.