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War Crimes Trials in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War in Asia, 1945-1956

Justice in Time of Turmoil

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Editors:
  1. Kerstin von Lingen

    1. Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

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  • Explores the contradictory intentions embodied in bringing perpetrators to justice
  • Offers a fresh perspective on justice in Asia
  • Draws attention to the Asian dimension in the history in international humanitarian law

Part of the book series: World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence (WHCCV)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. Justice in Time of Turmoil: War Crimes Trials in Asia in the Context of Decolonization and Cold War

    • Kerstin von Lingen, Robert Cribb
    Pages 1-23

  3. Colonialism, Anti-Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism in China: The Opium Question at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal

    • Neil Boister
    Pages 25-50

  4. The French Prosecution at the IMTFE: Robert Oneto, Indochina and the Rehabilitation of French Prestige

    • Beatrice Trefalt
    Pages 51-67

  5. Decolonization and Subaltern Sovereignty: India and the Tokyo Trial

    • Milinda Banerjee
    Pages 69-91

  6. The Legacy of Extraterritoriality and the Trial of Japanese War Criminals in the Republic of China

    • Anja Bihler
    Pages 93-116

  7. The Burma Trials of Japanese War Criminals, 1946–1947

    • Robert Cribb
    Pages 117-142

  8. Colonization and Postcolonial Justice: US and Philippine War Crimes Trials in Manila After the Second World War

    • Wolfgang Form
    Pages 143-166

  9. Justice and Decolonization: War Crimes on Trial in Saigon, 1946–1950

    • Ann-Sophie Schoepfel
    Pages 167-194

  10. Netherlands East Indies’ War Crimes Trials in the Face of Decolonization

    • Lisette Schouten
    Pages 195-220

  11. Australia’s Pursuit of the Taiwanese and Korean ‘Japanese’ War Criminals

    • Dean Aszkielowicz
    Pages 221-238

  12. From Tokyo to Khabarovsk: Soviet War Crimes Trials in Asia as Cold War Battlefields

    • Valentyna Polunina
    Pages 239-260

  13. Resurrecting Defeat: International Propaganda and the Shenyang Trials of 1956

    • Adam Cathcart
    Pages 261-278

  14. Erratum to: From Tokyo to Khabarovsk: Soviet War Crimes Trials in Asia as Cold War Battlefields

    • Valentyna Polunina
    Pages E1-E3

  15. Back Matter

    Pages 279-290
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Keywords

About this book

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?

Reviews

“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)

“Fills a major gap in our knowledge about the complex post-War accountability processes in Asia and the Pacific after the end of the Second World War ... . Just as the Tokyo trial remains in the shadow of Nuremberg, the second tier trials in the Far East have never had the recognition they deserve. ... However, the vision underpinning this goes beyond neglected histories. The central issue probed by the contributors is the relationship between these trials and emergent nationalism leading to the crumbling of colonial empires. … providing us an important, fascinating and still-relevant window into the handling of the past in Asia and the Pacific.” (Suzannah Linton, Zhejiang Gongshang University, China)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Kerstin von Lingen

About the editor

Kerstin von Lingen is 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.

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