International Military Tribunal for the Far East
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This article deals with the trials of Japanese politicians and senior military officers in relation to incidents during World War II. For more general information see: Japanese war crimes.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trials, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal or simply as the Tribunal, was convened to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of crimes: "Class A" (crimes against peace), "Class B" (war crimes), and "Class C" (crimes against humanity) - committed during World War II, including some incidents such as the Nanjing Massacre. War crimes charges against more junior personnel were dealt with separately, in other cities throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
The tribunal convened on May 3, 1946, and was adjourned on November 12, 1948.
Twenty-five Japanese military and political leaders were charged with Class A crimes, and more than 300,000 Japanese were charged with Class B and C crimes, mostly over prisoner abuse. The crimes perpetrated by Japanese troops and authorities in the occupation of Korea and China (Manchukuo) were not part of the proceeding. China held 13 tribunals of its own, resulting in 504 convictions and 149 executions.
The Japanese Emperor Hirohito and Prince Asaka were not prosecuted for any alleged involvement in any of the three categories of crimes. Kishi Nobusuke, who was held as a suspected Class A criminal but never tried, later became Prime Minister.
Creation of the court
The legal basis for the trial was established by the Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (CIMTFE) that was proclaimed on 19 January 1946. CIMTFE set down the laws and procedures by which the IMTFE trials were to be conducted, including the types of crimes. On 25 April 1946 in accordance with the provisions of Article 7 of the CIMTFE the original Rules of Procedure of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East with amendments were promulgated. [Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East]Within documents relating to the IMTFE it is also referred to as the Charter[Rules of Procedure of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East] 25 April 1946
A panel of eleven judges presided over the IMTFE, one each from victorious Allied powers (United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Republic of China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, and the Philippines).
Prosecutors
| Country | Prosecutor |
|---|---|
| Chief Prosecutor | Joseph Keenan |
| Australia | Justice Alan Mansfield |
| Canada | Brigadier Henry Nolan |
| China | Hsiang Che-Chun |
| France | Robert L. Oneto |
| India | P. Govinda Menon, who later became a judge of the Madras High court and then the Supreme Court of India. |
| Netherlands | W.G. Frederick Borgerhoff-Mulder |
| New Zealand | Brigadier Ronald Quilliam |
| Philippines | Pedro Lopez |
| UK | Arthur Comyns-Carr |
| USA | Joseph Keenan |
| USSR | Minister S.A. Golunsky |
Judges
| Country | Judge | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Sir William Webb | Justice of the High Court of Australia; was the President of the Tribunal |
| Canada | Edward Stuart McDougall | Former Judge, King's Bench Appeal Side |
| China | Major-General Mei Ju-ao | Attorney and Member, Legislative Yuan
|
| France | Henri Bernard | Chief Prosecutor, First Military Tribunal in Paris |
| India | Radhabinod Pal | Lecturer, Calcutta University Law College; Provided dissenting opinion. |
| Netherlands | Professor Bert Röling | Professor of Law, Utrecht University |
| New Zealand | Harvey Northcroft | Judge Advocate General of New Zealand |
| Philippines | Colonel Delfin Jaranilla | Attorney General, Supreme Court Member
|
| UK | Hon Lord Patrick | Judge, Scotland College of Justice |
| USA | John P. Higgins | Chief Justice, Massachusetts State Superior Court |
| Major-General Cramer | Replaced Judge Higgins in July 1946 | |
| USSR | Major-General I.M. Zarayanov | Member, Military Collegium of the Supreme Court |
Charges
| Count | Offense |
|---|---|
| 1 | As leaders, organisers, instigators, or accomplices in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to wage wars of aggression, and war or wars in violation of international law. |
| 27 | Waging unprovoked war against China. |
| 29 | Waging aggressive war against the United States. |
| 31 | Waging aggressive war against the British Commonwealth. |
| 32 | Waging aggressive war against the Netherlands. |
| 33 | Waging aggressive war against France (Indochina). |
| 35,36 | Waging aggressive war against the USSR. |
| 54 | Ordered, authorised, and permitted inhumane treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) and others. |
| 55 | Deliberately and recklessly disregarded their duty to take adequate steps to prevent atrocities. |
Sentences
There were 28 defendants tried, mostly military and political leaders. Two defendants (Matsuoka Yosuke and Nagano Osami) died of natural causes during the trial. Okawa Shumei had a nervous breakdown during the trial and was removed.
Seven others were sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were executed at Sugamo Prison in Ikebukuro on December 23, 1948:
- General Doihara Kenji, spy (later Air Force commander)
- Baron Hirota Koki, foreign minister
- General Itagaki Seishiro, war minister
- General Kimura Heitaro, commander, Burma Expeditionary Force
- General Matsui Iwane, commander, Shanghai Expeditionary Force
- General Muto Akira, commander, Philippines Expeditionary Force
- General Tojo Hideki, commander, Kwantung Army (later prime minister)
- General Araki Sadao, war minister
- Colonel Hashimoto Kingoro, major instigator of the second Sino-Japanese War
- Field Marshal Hata Shunroku, war minister
- Baron Hiranuma Kiichiro, prime minister
- Hoshino Naoki, Chief Cabinet Secretary
- Kaya Okinori, opium dealer to the Chinese
- Marquis Kido Koichi, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
- General Koiso Kuniaki, governor of Korea, later prime minister
- General Minami Jiro, commander, Kwantung Army
- Admiral Oka Takasumi, naval minister
- General Oshima Hiroshi, ambassador to Germany
- General Sato Kenryo, chief of the Military Affairs Bureau
- Admiral Shimada Shigetaro, naval minister
- Shiratori Toshio, ambassador to Italy
- General Suzuki Teiichi, president of the Cabinet Planning Board
- General Umezu Yoshijiro, war minister
Subsidiary and related trials
The Khabarovsk War Crime Trials held by the Soviets tried and found guilty some members of Japan's bacteriological and chemical warfare unit (Unit 731). However those who surrendered to the Americans were never brought to trial as General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological weapons.
China held 13 tribunals of its own, resulting in 504 convictions and 149 executions.
Criticism
The IMTFE shared many of the same criticisms as the Nuremberg Trials, including the Ex post facto nature of the IMTFE.
Solis Horowitz argued that IMTFE had an American bias, because unlike the Nuremberg Trial, there was only a single prosecution team, which was led by Joseph B. Keenan, an American, though the members of the tribunal represented eleven different Allied countries.
The IMTFE had less official support than the Nuremberg Trial. For example, Chief Prosecutor Joe Keenan, a former US assistant attorney general, had a much lower position that Nuremberg's Robert H. Jackson, a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Radhabinod Pal, the Indian justice at the IMTFE, argued in his dissenting opinion that Japan was innocent. He wrote, "If Japan is judged, the Allies should also be judged equally." However, his opinion was not shared by the majority of the justices at Tokyo.
On the other hand, it is worth to referring to the Potsdam Declaration which the major Allies gave consent to and had clear intention to shorten the war period. The Allies did not want more bloodshed after Germany was defeated. They agreed to the term "the unconditional surrender of Japanese Armed Force", not the surrender of the Government of Japan. In this sense Japan did not surrender unconditionally, and the Japanese nation did not suffer the debellation which the Third Reich didICRC [Commentaries on the Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War] [Article 5] "The German capitulation was both political, involving the dissolution of the Government, and military, whereas the Japanese capitulation was only military"..
It was McArthur to frame up "unconditional surrender myth" which brings the whole IMTFE into tatters. There was no dictatorship in Japan and the cabinets changed in acordance with the constitutional procedure even during the Pacific war.
The restriction of trial and punishment by the IMTFE to personnel of Japan has led to accusations of victor's justice and that Allied war crimes could not be tried. However it is usual that the armed forces of a civilised country [Judgement : The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity] contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School. "but by 1939 these rules laid down in the [Hague] Convention [of 1907] were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war" issue their forces with detailed guidance on what is and is not permitted under their military code. These are drafted to include any international treaty obligations and the customary laws of war. If a member of the armed forces breaks their own military code they can expect to face a court martial. When members of the Allied armed forces broke their military codes they could be and were tried, for example the Biscari Massacre trials. The unconditional surrender of the Axis powers was unusual and led directly to the formation of the international tribunals. Usually international wars end conditionally and the treatment of suspected war criminals makes up part of the peace treaty. In most cases those who are not prisoners of war are tried under their own judicial system if they are suspected of committing war crimes – as happened at the end of the concurrent Continuation War and led to the war-responsibility trials in Finland. In restricting the international tribunal to trying suspected Axis war crimes, the Allies were acting within normal international law.
60th anniversary
In a survey of 3,000 Japanese conducted in 2006 as the 60th anniversary approached, 70% of those questioned were unaware of the outcome of the trials, a figure that rose to 90% for those in the 20-29 age group. [60 ans après le Procès de Tokyo, les Japonais ignorants de leur histoire] Agence France-Presse 5 February 2006See also
References
- Adapted by Ming-Hui Yao [Basic Facts on the Nanjing Massacre and the Tokyo War Crimes Trial] ([mirror site]). This web article is based on the pamphlet by New Jersey Hong Kong Network, published in September 1993. Both sites are web servers in the domain of China News Digest International, Inc
Further reading
- Bass, Gary Jonathan. Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Trials. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
- Brackman, Arnold C. The Other Nuremberg: the Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1987.
- Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: New Press, 1999.
- Horowitz, Solis. "The Tokyo Trial" International Conciliation 465 (Nov 1950), 473-584.
- Minear, Richard H. Victor's Justice: the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.
- Wu Tianwei [The Failure of the Tokyo Trial]
- [The Postwar Judgement: I. International Military Tribunal for the Far East] - Summary and some pictures from the United States National Archives
- Stephen Stratford. [Stephen's Study Room: British Military & Criminal History in the period 1900 to 1999: IMTFE]
Footnotes
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