Hastings International and Comparative Law Review
Volume 17
Number 3 Spring 1994

Article 2

1-1-1994

Compensation for Japan's World War II War-Rape
Victims
Karen Parker
Jennifer F. Chew

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Karen Parker and Jennifer F. Chew, Compensation for Japan's World War II War-Rape Victims, 17 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 497(1994).
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Compensation for Japan's World War H
War-Rape Victims
By Karen Parker* and Jennifer F. Chew**
Table of Contents
I. Introduction ............................................
II. The Jugun Ianfu Scheme ................................
A. Overview............................................
B. Facilities ............................................
C. Abduction and FraudulentRecruitment .............
D. Treatment and Living Conditions ...................
III. Violations Of Then-Existing Customary International
Law .....................................................
A. Customary InternationalLaw ProhibitingRape andOther Forms of Torture .............................
B. Customary InternationalLaw ProhibitingSlavery
and Forced Labor...................................
C. Jus Cogens and Erga Omnes ........................

D. PostwarDevelopments in Human Rights andHumanitarianLaw ..................................
IV. Compensation ..........................................
A. Right to Compensation..............................
B. Germany's PostwarReparation Scheme .............
V. United Nations Action ..................................
VI. Japan's Response .......................................
A. Allied and Korean Treaties With Japan ..............
B. Time Bar ...........................................
C. Numbers of Victims and Claims .....................
VII. International Action ....................................
VIII. Conclusion ..............................................
Annex: Proposal For Reparation And Compensation For
World War II War-Rape Victims .....................

498
502
502
503
505
507
510
513
517
519

521
523
523
528
532
535
537
539
540
541
542
543

* J.D. University of San Francisco, 1983; DiplOme (International and Comparative
Law of Human Rights), Strasbourg. The author practices in the fields of international,
human rights and humanitarian (armed conflict) law.

** Member of the Class of 1994. B.A. University of California at Los Angeles, 1990.

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[Vol. 17:497

I. INTRODUCTION"I could speak no Japanese and I was a virgin. Every day mybody was soiled by [fifteen] Japanese soldiers. I was so tired I wanted
to die. It lasted four years. After it was over, I could not havechildren."'
They were jugun ianfu-"comfort women."' As many as 200,000
women were tricked or abducted into slavery for sexual services for
the Japanese Imperial Army during World War 11.3 Women and girls
as young as twelve were taken from their homes in Korea, China, the4Dutch East Indies, Taiwan, Malaysia, Burma, and the Philippines.
1. Statement of a 69 year old Korean survivor during a Japanese television broadcast.
Mark O'Neill, Koreans ForcedInto Prostitutionby JapanArmy Demand Payment, RETER
LIBR. REP., Dec. 2, 1991, available in LEXIS, World Library, Lbyrpt File.
2. "Comfort women" is a direct translation of the Japanese phrase "jugun ianfu" andis a widely used term for these victims. The authors prefer the terms "women and girls
forced into sexual slavery," "war-rape victims," or "sex slaves." "War-rape victims" is aterm used also by many claimants. See, e.g., Letter to Prime Minister K. Miyazawa, in
WAR VICTIMIZATION AND JAPAN: INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC HEARING REPORT 148 (Executive Committee International Public Hearing ed., 1993) [hereinafter WAR VICTIMIZATION
AND JAPAN] (copy on file with author).
3. While no figure can probably be proven now, investigators now generally indicate
about 200,000 women were war-rape victims of Japan. Then Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa admitted this figure. See Japan Should Compensate Canadian POWs, Expert Says, TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL, Aug. 17, 1993, at 3D; U.N. SuB-COMM'N ON
PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION AND PROTECTION OF MINORITIES; STATEMENT OF DEmOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA, U.N. Doe. E/CN.4/Sub.2/SR.10, at 14, 15 (1993)(noting that investigation carried out by the Committee for the Investigation of Damage
Caused by Japanese Imperialists During Their Occupation of Korea placed the figure at
200,000) [hereinafter STATEMENT OF KOREA] [the Sub-Commission is hereinafter SUBCOMM'N ON PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION]. Sources that indicate fewer victims discuss
the difficulties in verifying any number. See, e.g., George Hicks, They Won't Allow Japanto Push the "Comfort Women" Aside, INT'L HERALD TRIB., Feb. 10, 1993, at 2.
4. See WAR VICTIMIZATION AND JAPAN, supra note 2 (discussing historical and personal testimony of sex slaves from North Korea, South Korea, Philippines, China, theDutch East Indies, including both Indonesian and Dutch nationals, and Taiwan). In February 1993, a number of Malaysian women publicly admitted that they had been sex slaves.
See Gwen Benjamin, 2 Malaysian "Comfort Women" Seek JapaneseCompensation, JAPANECON. NEwswiRE, Feb. 19, 1993, available in LEXIS, Asiapc Library, JEN file (citing evidence that about 200 women abducted from Kelantan State alone). Some sources verify
sex slaves from Burma. Interview with See Sein, World War II survivor from Burma(Karenni State), in New York, N.Y. (Nov. 18, 1993) (stating many Karen, Karenni, andMon women and girls taken to "sex camps"); see also George Hicks, Ghosts Gathering,
FAR E. ECON. REv., Feb. 18, 1993, at 32 (indicating sex slaves from Burma). A report of
the Celebes Civil Administration (Indonesia) contained in a Japanese Military Report ofJune 20, 1942 lists "Toradjas, Javanese, Makassars, Karossas, Enrekangese, Mandalese"women. Army Regulations Governed Care of Forced Prostitutes,JAPAN TIMES, Aug. 8,
1992, at 3. A 1945 Australian document contains testimony of Australian nurses who resisted attempts to force them into being sex slaves and discusses the presence of civilian

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Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

They were sent to locations throughout Japanese-occupied Asia where
they were imprisoned in facilities known as "comfort houses,"' raped
daily by soldiers, and forced to endure torture and abuse. Only about
twenty-five percent survived this treatment. 6 Of these postwar survivors, possibly only 2,000, now about sixty-five to eighty-five years old,
are still alive. 7 Never compensated, they continue to suffer from theirbrutal treatment.
After nearly fifty years of silence, a growing number of surviving
war-rape victims have come forth publicly to present their stories inan effort to obtain apologies from the Japanese government, full disclosure of all the facts, and monetary compensation. 8 Many now have
filed legal actions for compensation in Japanese courts, claiming thatwhat was done to them violated then-existing law.9 Although the Japanese courts have not awarded these victims any compensation, theseinternees at "pleasure houses." Letter from Major-General Lloyd to General Headquarters in Melbourne (Sept. 28, 1945) (document from Australian National Archives, markcd"Secret and Confidential") (copy on file with author).
5. Yoshiaki Yoshimi, HistoricalUnderstandingson the "Military Comfort llbmen" Issue, in WAR VIcrfzATIoN AND JAPAN, supra note 2, at S1, 82. (verifying do-umnt
showing facilities for sex slaves in China, Hong Kong, French-Occupied Indozhina, th2
Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, British-occupied Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, Burma,
New Britain, Trobriand, Okinawa, and Ogasawara).
6. Representative Seijuro Arahune, late of the Japanese Diet (Liberal Demozratic
Party), made public statements as early as 1975 that 145,000 Korean sex slaves died during
World War II. Interview with Senator Tamako Nakanishi, in Tokyo, Japan (Dcc. 1, 19 2).
.T
Representative Arahune's remarks were recently raised in Diet debates. See SrATSuOF KOREA, supra note 3. This statement also contains a quote from a November 20, 1975
campaign speech of Representative Arahune: "142,000 Korean comfort vomen died. The
Japanese soldiers killed them." Id.
7. This figure is the author's speculation based on interviews and review of
documents.
8. See, eg., Kang Soon-Ae, Brother, Don't Avoid Me, inWAR VzI'n.iIZTON AN.D
JAPAN, supra note 2, at 16; Maria Rosa Luna Henson, Fortunate to Speak Out About My
Experiences Duringthe War, in WAR VICTMIZATION AND JAPN, supra note 2, at 33; Kim
Yong-Sil, How Can We Permit Their Sins?, in WAR VicnMIzAko. Ar4D JAPAN, supra note
2, at 56; Jeanne O'Herne, Cry of the Raped, in WAR ViCTIMiAz ON AND JAPAN, suprao: ANiD JAPAN,
note 2, at 60; Wan Ai-Hua, I Hate JapaneseSoldiers, in WAR Vic'nz,,
supra note 2, at 68; A Taiwanese Woman, Like an Animal on Timor Island, in WAR Vic.
7IMnTION AND JAPAN, supra note 2, at 79; see also Comfort Without Joy, Eco-'.,.NIr,
T
Jan. 18, 1992, at 32; Gail Swainson, Woman Recounts Wartime Ser Slavery. Probe Urged
into WWII "Torture" of Koreans by JapaneseTroops,TORON-ro STAR, Nov. 14, 1992, at A3.
9. Interviews with Kunio Aitani, Takakashi Niimi, Kim Kyeung Duk, and Kenichi
Takagi, Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 8-12, 1992); see KAREN PARKER, INTERNATIONAL EDtVCA.
TIONAL DEVELOPMENT, INC, COMPENSATION FOR JAPAN'S WORLD WAR II Vcrx

(1993) [hereinafter PARKER lED REPORT]. Plaintiffs with actions currently pending inJapanese courts seek from $20,000 to $200,000 each in damages. According to the Mainiehi
Shimbun, plaintiffs, including war-rape victims, prisoners of war, and forced laborers, areseeking a combined 19.3 trillion yen in compensation for World War II war crimes. Asia-

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[Vol. 17:497

legal actions have led to community and legal support for redress.10
For example, many Japanese lawyers have formed special committees
to represent victims."
Concerned about the time legal actions usually take in Japan,12
frustrated by the lack of response by the Japanese government, andfueled by worldwide outrage at their plight, war-rape victims and theirrepresentatives have now presented their cases to human rights bodiesof the United Nations.1
The Japanese government initially denied any coercion or evenofficial involvement in sexual slavery. 4 However, recent investigation
into events described by these victims has revealed army documents
stored in Japan's Self-Defense Agency that clearly indicate involvement by the Japanese government and the Japanese Imperial Army in
the capture and recruitment of women and in the operation of faciliPacific Nations Seek 19.3 Trillion Yen Redress, JAPAN EcoN. NEWSWIRE, Sept. 7, 1993,
availablein LEXIS, Asiapc Library, JEN File.
10. For example, a number of Japanese citizen's groups sponsored "An International
Public Hearing Concerning Post-War Compensation in Japan" on December 9, 1992, attended by the author. The public hearing was followed on December 10,1992 by a symposium called "War and Human Rights-Legal Analysis on Post-War Settlement" sponsoredby the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
11. Eighteen lawyers groups have been formed by the Association of Lawyers for Coordinating Activities Seeking Post-War Compensation. Letter from Yoshitaka Takagi, Vice
Director, to Karen Parker (May 24, 1993) (on file with author). Lawyers groups have also
been formed in the sex slaves' own countries. For example, in the Philippines, five humanrights lawyers associations have formed the Filipino Panel of Lawyers to assist Philippine
claimants, now said to number 55. Letters from Indai L. Sajor, Asian Women Human
Rights Council, to Karen Parker (January 23, 1993 and July 8, 1993) (on file with author);
Interviews with Indai L. Sajor, in Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 8-10, 1992) and in Vienna, Austria(June 16, 1993). Similar groups have formed in Taiwan, the People's Democratic Republicof Korea, and the Republic of Korea. Interviews with Wang Ching-Feng, Taipei Comfort
Women Project Task Force, Lee Mi-Gyeong, Korean Council, and Ho Sok-Till, Committee
for Measures on Compensation to "Comfort Women," in Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 8-11, 1992);
see generally WAR VIcriMIZATION AND JAPAN, supra note 2.
12. See infra note 182 and accompanying text.
13. The sex slave cases were initially presented by International Educational Development, Inc., (IED) and others at the 1992 session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights(U.N. Commission). See, e.g., U.N. COMM'N ON HUMIAN RiOHrs; STATEMENT OF INTER.
NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT,U.N. Doc. EICN.4/SR.30/Add.1, at 3 (1992).

The U.N. Economic and Social Council, in resolutions 5(I) of February 16, 1946, and 9(11)of June 21, 1946, established the U.N. Commission to advise and recommend on any matter of human rights. The U.N. Commission now has a full range of activities with working
groups and rapporteurs addressing a variety of human rights issues. See UNITED NATIONSACTION IN T=E FIELD OF HUMAN RIGHrs at 15-18, U.N. Doc. ST/HR/2/Rev.3, U.N. Sales
No. E.88.XIV.2 (1988).
14. See, e.g., U.N. COMM'N ON HUMAN Riors; STATEMENT OF JAPAN (RIoHT OFREPLY), U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/SR.34, at 16 (1992) [hereinafter STATEMENT OF JAPAN].

19941Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

ties.' 5 Yet the present Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge fully these atrocities or to provide adequate compensation. The
government maintains, inter alia, that all claims arising out of WorldWar II were settled under the Treaty of Peace with Japan 16 and theAgreement on the Settlement of Problems Concerning Property and
Claims and on Economic Cooperation Between Japan and the Republic of Korea. 17
This Article describes Japan's jugun ianfiu scheme and presents

Japan's wartime acts in light of international human rights and humanitarian (armed conflict) law. Focusing mainly on rape and slavery, this
Article will show that these acts were violations of then-existing customary international law. It will then show that the right to compensation following such violations is a fundamental principle ofinternational law. The Article then describes the German compensation programs as a viable compensation scheme, discusses the initiatives presently before the United Nations to address these violations,and refutes Japan's legal responses to the issue.18 Finally, this Article
offers a comprehensive scheme by which the Japanese government
can fulfill its obligations to provide compensation.
15. Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Address at International Public Hearing Concerning Post War
Compensation of Japan (Dec. 9, 1992). Yoshimi, a leading scholar in this field, discovered
and compiled many of the relevant documents. JucuN IANFU SHIRYO SHU [DocUmii:NS] (Yoshiaki Yoshimi ed., 1992) (Japanese only) [hereinafON MILrARY COMFORT Wo
ter Docu mn s] (copy on file with author); see also Wartime Army Dircctly Involred inBrothels, Report Says, UPI, Jan. 27, 1992, available in LEXIS, World Library, UPI File.
Veterans of the Japanese Imperial Army also began recounting incidents in which theyeither witnessed or, more likely, personally participated. Tony Wong, An Old SoldierAdmits His Crime: Ichiro Ichikawa Ran a Brothel of "Comfort Girls" for JapaneseArmy,
ToRONTo STAR, Nov. 23, 1992, at A17; see also Mark O'Neill, Japan Soldiers Face Wartime
Guilt After 50 Years, REU-ER Lmn. REP., Jan. 22, 1992, available in LEXIS, World Library,
Lbyrpt File; Wartime Official to Testify on "Comfort Women" in Diet, JAPAN Eco%. New.
swipm, Feb. 24, 1992, available in LEXIS, Asiapc Library, JEN File.
16. Treaty of Peace with Japan, Sept. 8, 1951,3 U.S.T. 3169,136 U.N.T.S. 45 [hereinafter Allied Treaty]. Japan raised this treaty as a defense at a U.N. session. See, e.g., STATE.
isENT OF JAPAN, supra note 14, at 16.
17. Agreement on the Settlement of Problems Concerning Property and Claims andon Economic Cooperation, June 22, 1965, Japan-Korea, 583 U.N.T.S. 173 [hereinafter Korean Treaty]. The Japanese government has presented this defense at U.N. sessions. See,e.g., STATEhmNT OF JAPAN, supra note 14, at 17.
18. This Article will also refute other defenses raised by Japan.

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H.
A.

[Vol. 17,497

THE JUGUN IANFU SCHEME

Overview

In 1991, Kim Hak-Sun became the first war-rape victim to speakout about her experience. 19 Prior to that time, war-rape victims remained silent due to extreme social stigma and shame 2 Some could
not bear to talk about what they experienced, even to close family
members, because the pain was too raw. The Japanese soldiers who
had perpetrated the acts also maintained silence for similar reasons,but many of these soldiers have subsequently come forward to discuss
the events.2 Additionally, many documents relating to the sex-slave
policy had been destroyed by the Japanese Imperial Army. 2 Finally,knowledge of the facts, especially by the United States, was kept quiet
after the War and important documents held by the United States andother Allies were "buried." Consequently, these grim facts remained
hidden from public view for many years.
After the silence was finally broken, Japanese scholars began toamass proof. Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered documents in Japan thatlink the Japanese government to the jugun ianfu scheme. This find led
to a search for corroborating documents from the Allies,' which ulti19. See Hicks, supra note 3, at 2. Kim Hak-Sun, a Korean, testified publicly in August
1991, and with two other Korean victims, filed suit in Tokyo District Court on December 7,
1991. Id.
20. See, e.g., Kim, supra note 8, at 58 (stating "[flrom that time I have lived a life ofshunning people out of fear of revealing my disgraceful past. I decided not to marry because I was so ashamed of my past."); Wan, supra note 8, at 71 (stating "[m]y adopted
family and villagers called me dirty and didn't want then to have me around. So I moved
out of the village to Tai Yuan where I live alone."); see also Lee Mi-Gyeong, Realities of the"Comfort Women" in South Korea, in WAR VICnMIZA7ON AND JAPAN, supra note 2, at 8(indicating policy of Japanese government to keep these events secret); Wang Ching-Feng,
Japan'sMilitary Sexual Slavery of the Taiwanese during World War II, in VAR VWcrINIZATION AND JAPAN, supra note 2, at 72, 73 (explaining silence because "a raped woman,living in humiliation, is always in fear of others knowing of the disaster").
21. In Japan, a hotline was opened to which veterans called to confess what they
remembered of the "comfort women." In all, there were 230 calls from ex-soldiers, doctors, and nurses. Attorney Kenichi Takagi, who helped set up the hotline, said, "Most had
not spoken about it even to their wife and children. [Now] they wanted to confess their
guilt." O'Neill, supra note 1. Ironically, a book, MILrrARY COMFORT WOMEN by S.
Kakoh, had been published in Japan in 1972, several years before the remarks of Representative Aruhune, but the book generated little reaction at the time. See Yoshimi, supranote 5, at 88.
22. Interview with Yoshiaki Yoshimi, in Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 8, 1992).
23. Id.; see also Louise do Rosario, A Quest for Truth, FAR E. ECON. RFv., Feb. 18,
1993, at 37.

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

mately yielded conclusive documents in various archives in the UnitedStates and Australia.24
The documents show that the primary purpose for the jugun ianfit
scheme was to reduce the large number of rapes committed by Japanese soldiers. The scheme is thought to have arisen especially becauseof the Nanking massacre.' The rapes fueled anti-Japanese sentimentamong the civilian populations and led to attacks against army patrols.26 They also led to the widespread occurrence of venereal disease among Japanese soldiers, which then spread to the civilian
population of Japan upon the return of the soldiers. 27 General Okabe
Naosaburo issued an order to establish "comfort houses" in China ona mass scale as soon as possible to prevent Japanese soldiers fromcontinuing to rape.8
B. Facilities
After establishing the program in China, the Japanese government duplicated it in other locations under its occupation, which by1942 included large parts of the Asia/Pacific region. The Japanese Im24. Interview with Yoshiaki Yoshimi, supra note 22. Yoshimi also indicates documentsin the archives of the Netherlands. Yoshimi, supra note 5, at 32.
25. Yoshimi, supra note 5, at 85 (citing Diary of linuma Mamoru, Chief of Staff, Japanese Expeditionary Force in Shanghai, entry on December 11, 1937); see also Nankin Senshi Shiryoshu, in Documrrs, supra note 15, at 211. According to Yoshimi, Japan feared
reaction from the United States, Europe, and China because of extensive rapes during thesieges of Nanking and Shanghai. Yoshimi, supra note 5, at 85. The Chief of Staff for theJapanese Expeditionary Force in Shanghai conjectured that the first "comfort houses"
were established in Shanghai in 1932. Okabe Naosaburo Taisho No Nikki [General Okabe
Naosaburo's Diary], cited in Yoshimi, supra note 5, at 81.
26. DocrNmtirs, supra note 15, at 209.
Recently sabotage of transportation networks in Shandong Province has been frequently reported.... [I]tis ... also true that illegal conduct by soldiers andofficers towards local residents has stirred up their hatred and resistance....
Reported rapes involving Japanese officers and men in various places have spreadover the whole area, fermenting unexpectedly serious anti-Japanese sentiment.
Local residents are in the habit of uniting in retaliation, making it a rule to kill a
person who has committed rape.
Order of June 27,1938 by Okabe Naosaburo, Chief of Staff, Japanese Expeditionary Forcein North China, reprintedin Rapes Sparked Callfor Facilities,JAPAN TaNIES, Aug. 5, 1992,
at 3 [hereinafter Naosaburo Order]; see also DocumENTs, supra, at 209; Colin Nickerson,
Japan Admits Forcing Koreans into Wartime Prostitution,BosToN GLOBE, Jan. 14, 1992
(Nat'l/Foreign), at 1.
27. See Naomi Hirakawa & Rieko Tenaka, Secret Service Monitored Brothels, JAPA.N,
Thms, Aug.6, 1992, at 3.
28. Naosaburo Order, supra note 26, at 3 ("It is vital to strictly control the conduct ofindividual officers and men and also to establish facilities for providing sexual comfort assoon as possible."); see also DocunmNws, supra note 15, at 209.

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(Vol. 17:497

perial Army established facilities for sex slaves in the following places:
China, Korea, Hong Kong, French Indochina, Philippines, Malaya,
Singapore, British Borneo, Dutch East Indies, Burma, a number ofPacific Islands (New Britain, Trobriand), and Okinawa.29
Documents reveal three types of facilities for sex slaves: (1) those
directly run by Japanese military authorities; (2) those run by civilians,
but essentially set up and controlled by Japanese military authorities;and (3) those that were mainly private facilities but with some priority
for military use.3 ° Despite these differences, there are characteristics
common to at least the first two types of facilities or "comfort
houses." These include: (1) the facilities were used exclusively by Japanese soldiers and army civilian employees; (2) the facilities were
under strict control of the Japanese Army, which helped to establish
and to manage these facilities and helped to recruit sex slaves; (3) the
facilities had to obtain a permit from the army and accept its support
and control in all procedures; and (4) all facilities followed written
regulations created by the Japanese Army.3
The Japanese Army set out regulations for all facilities for the sex
slaves, though compliance varied widely. 2 For example, while eachfacility's working hours varied somewhat on paper, generally, working
hours were to begin at nine or ten in the morning and end at six orseven in the evening for enlisted men and later for officers. The rankof the soldier would determine the length of time allowed for a visit,
ranging from thirty minutes to one hour. Even after regular working
hours, the facilities could be used throughout the night, mostly by officers. In many cases, even where a time schedule did exist, it was
rarely adhered to, especially on weekends when many soldiers would
arrive.3
29. Yoshimi, supra note 5, at 82. The authors refer to the places where the sex slaves
were detained as "facilities for sex slaves" rather than "comfort houses" or "brothels" because the sex slaves were detained involuntarily. The terms "brothels" or "comfort
houses" imply that the presence of these sex slaves was voluntary. There were in fact
brothels with voluntary prostitutes, but this Article is not about them.
30. Interview with Yoshiaki Yoshimi, in Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 9, 1992). Documents thus
far discovered describe four types of comfort houses. The fourth type were ordinary brothels, where most of the women were presumed to be "voluntary" prostitutes and not sex
slaves. See Yoshimi, supra note 5, at 84.
31. Lee, supra note 20, at 9-10; see also DocumNrs, supra note 15, at 105-06, 324-26,
367.
32. Lee, supra note 20, at 13-15.
33. Kim Hak-Soon, a former sex slave, recounts, "[Japanese soldiers] visited us day
and night. We had to received [sic] some twenty soldiers on normal days and more than
thirty soldiers when the troops returned from field operations." Park, Research on War

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Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

These facilities varied in the fees they charged, with some having
strict control on the ticketing process.-' Usually, the amount of fees
varied according to the soldier's rank and the ethnicity of the sex
slave, with higher fees charged for Korean women. These regulations
did not provide for payments to the women themselves, and many
war-rape victims report that they were never paid at all.35 Some were
provided with cosmetics and clothing while others were given occasional tips.
C. Abduction and Fraudulent Recruitment
Sex slaves were either abducted 36 or "recruited" under false pretenses 7 Those "recruited" were usually promised jobs such as hospital assistants, file clerks, or teachers. The following is an account of
typical recruitment methods taken from a formerly classified document of the United States Office of War Information:
Early in May of 1942 Japanese agents arrived in Korea for the purpose of enlisting Korean girls for "comfort service" in newly conCrimes and Crimes Against Humanity (Dec. 10, 1992) (unpublished manuscript on filewith author).
34. According to two reports by Americans who interrogated 20 Korean woman
forced into becoming sex slaves in Burma, the Japanese facility owners operated on detailed instructions from the army. The women provided sex daily for up to 90 noncommissioned officers and soldiers and 15 officers. They were paid up to sixteen cents per man
depending on rank. The facility owner subsequently took up to 60% of the woman's gro:3
earnings. Wartime Army Directly Involved in Brothels, Report Says, supra note 15.
35. When asked if she was ever paid, Kim Hak-Soon, a former comfort w oman stated,"The Japanese treated us like slaves, and gave us nothing but food, just enough to surviv e."
Park, supra note 33. Another woman, allowed to also work in a grocery store, savcd morethan 10,000 Japanese yen. After the war, this was worth very little, and she never took it,
claiming "I did not withdraw it because I could not stand the fact that the money which I
got for the rapes I suffered, for my abused youth and for my miserable life became nothing.
I lost my bankbook, but my friend, who went with me to Timor Island with me, still keeps
hers." A Taiwanese Woman, supra note 8,at SO.
36. Seiji Yoshida, a veteran in charge of recruitment efforts, stated that he and 10
other soldiers kidnapped 205 Korean women in Cheju in 1943 under military orders. Zeno
Park, Korean "Comfort Girl" Recalls Days as a Set Slave, Armcf FR'AtcE PRX-SE[AGENCE FR.PRxE], Jan. 15, 1992, available in LEXIS, World Library, AFP File. Another veteran stated, "We did not treat these women like human beings. The Japane:egovernment is still saying they weren't forced, but I know they were forced, because I %a5
there." Wong, supra note 15.
37. An investigation into the issue of Korean sex slaves was carried out by the government of the Republic of Korea, clearly showing that "coercion and violence had been employed at both the recruitment stage and thereafter." U.N. CoM'i'r o,- Hrr:.A-; Ri-owr;
STAThmNT OF TrH REuBruc oF KoREA at 12, U.N. Doe. EICNA11993,ISRI27. Kim Hak
Sun states, "My youth was stolen from me. I was promised a job as a file clerk, and instead
was shipped to China to be defiled by Japanese soldiers. All I wanted was to die." Nickerson, supra note 26.

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

quered territories in Southeast Asia. The nature of this "service"
was not specified but it was assumed to be work connected withvisiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally
these false represenmaking the soldiers happy ....On the basis of38
tations many girls enlisted for overseas duty.

Military police and army personnel were also ordered to find andcapture women and girls from local villages. 39 Women, including
mothers and girls as young as twelve, were physically seized, often
torn from the arms of their families.40 Whole villages were emptied ofyoung girls and women.41 War-rape victim Wan Ai-Hua describes her
abduction:
38. UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION, "PSYCHOLOOICALWARFARETEAM ATrACHED TO U.S. ARiy FORCES INDIA-BURIA THEATER," JAPANESE PRISONER
OF WAR INFORMATION REPORT, No. 49 1 (1944)(copy on file with author). A Taiwanese

woman's experience illustrates this tactic: "I hear from some of my friends that there was a
Japanese man (not a military man) who was recruiting nurses for Southeast Asia. I
thought that working in [my] hospital would not have a good future, so I joined thegroup..... There were more than ten girls in our group. All of us thought we were going tobe nurses." A Taiwanese Woman, supra note 8, at 79.
39. A former Japanese military police officer, Ichiro Ichikawa, stated that, "The M.P.s[military police] would go into an area saying that we were rounding up people for the
security of the area, but they were really looking to get girls." Wong, supra note 15. Seiji
Yoshida, a veteran in charge of recruitment efforts, stated, "When we arrived at a village,
we dragged all women out into the streets. If anyone tried to flee, she would be beatenwith a baton and loaded onto a truck. We beat down screaming young mothers and if twoor three-year-old babies followed us, crying, they would be thrown away. The whole village turned into pandemonium." Ho Sok-Till, Report on the Former"Comfort Women" inNorth Korea, in WAR VxcrIMIZiAOmN AND JAPAN, supra note 2, at 49, 51.
40. Kiyoharu Yoshida, a wartime official in charge of Korean forced laborers, statedthat police and military officials took Korean mothers who were still nursing their babies tosatisfy the army's demand for at least 50 new comfort women per week. Wartime Official
to Testify on "Comfort Women" in Diet, supra note 15.

41. Witnesses recall seeing the girls being dragged away. Yi Tong-Chun was residingin Waesong-tong, a central district of Pyongyang, when women from his neighborhood
were abducted by the Japanese. Yi said that words fail to depict the sorrow, sufferings, andhumiliation of the Korean women taken away as comfort girls. "In my home village in
Chongpyong county, South Hamyong Province, the Japanese imperialists took away many
girls, saying they would wait on 'Imperial Army' soldiers." KCNA Cites Eye-Witnesses on"Brutal Atrocities" Endured by "Comfort Girls," BBC SUMMARY OF WORLD BROADCASTS, Jan. 29,1992, § 3, at A3, availablein LEXIS, World Library, BBCSWB File. Chang
Chin-Su was residing in Haksu-tong, Pyongsong, South Pyongan Province when he witnessed what he calls the "barbarity of the Japanese imperialists in taking away Korean
women as 'comfort girls for the army."' Id. He was later drafted into the fatigue party of
the Fourth Fleet Command of the Japanese Navy based in the South Sea Islands in the
Pacific in the summer of 1941. There, Chang said, he was taken to a house with a signboard of "Nankokuryo" on it. He recounts,
Japanese soldiers were always standing in long queue in front of the house. The
Japs beat brutally and tortured women if they resisted a little or did not act asthey wanted. What they ate was moth-eaten rotten rice. Countless Korean wo-

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

I was first caught on June 7, 1943. As the rumor spread about theJapanese coming, I hid myself in the sewage hole near Tao Zhuang,but they found me anyway.... Four other girls from the same village were likewise abducted and locked in separate rooms in thesame building.... Although we were aware that women from thesame village were taken captive in the building, we were not allowed to see each other.42
Women and girls were also abducted from camps for civilian detainees. A Dutch war-rape victim describes her abduction from Camp
Ambarawa in Java:All single girls seventeen and up were to line up in the compound.... Half the girls were sent away .... By this time all the girls
were crying and we were forced into the trucks. Six other girls
joined our miserable group. A total of sixteen
girls were taken from43
Ambarawa camp, forced against their will.
D.

Treatment and Living Conditions

Once abducted, the women experienced overwhelmingly inhumane and degrading treatment and living conditions. Many women
were removed from their homelands and transported to distant places
where linguistic and cultural differences made it easier for the Japanese to keep the women isolated from local populations. 44
While abuse was not limited to torture in the form of repeatedrapes, rape is clearly the abuse that produced the most suffering andmost strongly affected the women. One victim testified:
One by one the girls were dragged out ... they pleaded, theyscreamed, they kicked and fought with all their might. I can find nowords to describe this most inhuman and brutal rape. To me it wasworse than dying. Even today, I break out in cold sweat and am
paralysed with fear.45
men died of spiritual and physical sufferings, forced to a life of sex slaves day andnight, beastly Japs madly pouncing upon them to gratify their sexual desire. And
they were thrown into the sea, even a small patch of soil grudged them.
Id.

42. Wan, supra note 8, at 68-69.
43. O'Herne, supra note 8, at 60-61.
44. Nickerson, supra note 26. A Taiwanese former sex slave was shipped to Timor. A
Taiwanese Woman, supra note 8, at 79.
45. O'Herne, supra note 8, at 64-65.

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[Vol. 17:497

Another victim recalls, "Even now when I remember my experience
under the hands of the Japanese, I sometimes go numb and do46not
speak for several days. Until now there are bad effects on me."
These victims were typically raped many times each day. Victim
Kang Soon-Ae reports about fifteen rapes per day,47 while Kim YongSil recalls between twenty to thirty each day.48 As one veteran recounted, "It was sometimes especially hard on the women, because
there were never enough. If 500 soldiers came to town and there were
only 50 women, then they would each have to take 10 men apiece. 49
Besides rape and sexual abuse, other forms of torture and abuse
were common.5" Women who resisted their violators were beaten,
mutilated, or murdered, frequently with their fellow women forced towatch.5 ' They were very poorly fed 52 and lived under extremely difficult conditions.
46. Interview with Rosa Henson, in Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 9, 1992); see also Henson,supra note 8, at 38, 45.
47. Kang, supra note 8, at 16, 23.
48. Kim, supra note 8, at 56-57.
49. Wong, supra note 15.
50. One former sex slave stated, "[They] poured water in my nostril. When my stomach was swollen, they pressed my belly hard stamping a board on it. Every time I wokefrom unconsciousness, they repeated the pouring of water. Other girls... watch[ed] inhorror ....From then on I have lived shunning people in fear of revealing my disgracefulpast." Kim, supranote 8, at 56-57. Another stated, "After they pulled out most of the hair,
they started yelling at me as they beat and kicked me. This torture did not stop until myribs and some of my pelvic bones were broken ....They dragged my naked body and threw
me in the river nearby.... [A]n old man found me ....I could not move and had to stayin bed for three years." Wan, supra note 8, at 68, 70-71.
51. One victim reports, "I had to serve from 9 a.m. until late at night, sometimes until
dawn. One day a girl named 'Tokiko' spoke in Korean. After that, an officer gathered us in
the yard to teach us a lesson by cutting her neck with a sword. Horror-stricken, we fledwith a cry of terror." Kim, supra note 8, at 56-57. Another sex slave from Taiwan recounted, "They could kill us or mistreat us as they wished. There was no humanity." A
Taiwanese Woman, supra note 8, at 79-80; see also He,supra note 39, at 52 (reporting thatwhen epidemic broke out in Shanghai facility, Japanese soldiers shot women at random
and threw hand grenades at them, killing 30 and leaving only 5 survivors); KCNA Cites
Eye-Witnesses on "Brutal Atrocities" Endured by "Comfort Girls," supra note 41. Somesex slaves were killed shortly before Japanese soldiers surrendered. One report from thePhilippines indicates that the women were lined up and beheaded. Indai L. Sajor, Present
Situation of "Comfort Women" in the Philippines, in WAR VICrMIZATION AND JAPAN,

supra note 2, at 27, 34.
52. "I suffered constant starvation as I was given nothing but a lump of rolled barley
and a bowl of thin soup." Kim, supra note 8, at 57. "I got only two or three spoonfuls of
rice, which was usually only a remnant of what the Japanese had eaten. When they were ina bad mood, which happened quite often, I was given no food at all." Wan, supra note 8, at69.

1994]

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The harshness of their conditions is perhaps best illustrated by
the fact that thousands of sex slaves died in captivity.5 3 Althoughmany sex slaves were murdered in cold blood, some of these deaths
may be attributed to wartime conditions. For example, some facilities
were sometimes located near front lines and consequently many women were killed during military operations.I Others died during distant travels under wartime conditions. Deaths also occurred due tolack of or inappropriate medical care. For example, some died from
ill-performed abortions,55 while others died from malaria and a variety of other diseases, especially since many victims were weakened bynear-starvation diets.5 6 Injuries from beatings were rarely treated,and many women died from broken bones or internal injuries.?T A
fairly large number committed suicide because of their physical andpsychological anguish.5s
Daily existence was degrading. For example, the majority of thesex slaves were regularly examined by army doctors for venereal diseases. Many of these women were forced to clean used condoms 9Some were ordered to clean their vaginas with an antiseptic solution
every time they served a soldier. Some report receiving injections
called "number 606." Despite these regulations, many soldiers did not
53. See generallysupra note 6.

54. Interview with Yoshiaki Yoshimi, supra note 22 (commenting on number of facdities in combat zones and testimonies of war-rape victims regarding military attacks onthem).
55. Some commentators also report on crudely performed hysterectomies. See Hicks,
supra note 3, at 33.
56. Medical care that existed generally was for venereal disease and was provided primarily so that Japanese soldiers would not return home infected. Interview nith Yoshiaki
Yoshimi, supra note 22 (discussing prevention of rape and venereal disease as primary
motive for having facilities, as illustrated by large number of documents containing regulations expressing concern about spread of venereal diseases to returning soldiers); see also
DaitoaSenso Kankei Shohei No Seibyo Shoshi Ni Kansuru Ken [Sex Disease Treatment for
Officers and Men Dispatched Overseas for the Great East-Asia War, in DocuM Nrs.

supra note 15, at 171-72.
57. See, eg., Wan, supra note 8, at 68, 70 (victim left to die with ribs and pelvic bones
broken).
58. "Very few of the Koreans returned after the war. They were killed by the soldiers
because they were a nuisance, or they died of illness or starvation. Some committed suicide because of the shame of what they had done." Fumiko Kawada, The House With the
Red iles, cited in O'Neill, supra note 1; see also Wang, supra note 20, at 73.

59. Lee, supra note 20, at 14 (commenting that sex slaves were "disgusted" at cleaning
condoms, each used up to five times); see also Naomi Hirakawa & Maya Maruko, Doctors
Recall Steps to Curb VD at Brothels, JAPAN TiNias, Aug. 7, 1992, at 3. 'The soldiers wereordered to use condoms provided by the Army, but they were usually in short supply. See,e.g., Rules for Hygiene, JAPAN Tnsms, Aug. 7, 1992, at 3 (excerpts from wartime documentsof the Japanese Army).

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

use condoms, and many former sex slaves were infected with venereal
diseases.'
Survivors who have come forward almost uniformly report serious continuing medical and psychological problems due to being
treated as sex slaves. 6 ' Most have been unable or unwilling to marryor have children, and many have no family to support them. As thesevictims age, their medical problems are becoming more acute andtheir financial needs ever higher.62 Today, former sex slaves are dying
as a direct result of their treatment at the hands of the Japanesemilitary.
I.

VIOLATIONS OF THEN-EXISTING CUSTOMARYINTERNATIONAL LAW

The brutalities that the Japanese inflicted upon the war-rape victims violated customary international law. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal,63 the Charter of the Military Tribunal for
the Far East,' and the Council Control Law No. 1 0 65 describe theseatrocities as customary international crimes that justify international
criminal sanctions for World War II violators. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal established jurisdiction for:(b) war crimes: namely, violations of the laws and customs of war.
Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation for slave labour or for any other purpose of thecivilian population of or in occupied territory ....

(c) crimes against humanity: namely, murder... enslavement, deagainst any civilian
portation and other inhumane acts committed
66
population, before or during the war ....
60. See Lee, supra note 20.
61. See generally WAR VICTIMIZATION AND JAPAN, supra note 2.
62. Id.
63. The Charter was annexed to the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishmentof the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, Aug. 8, 1945, 59 Stat. 1544, 3 Bevans
1238, 1240.
64. The Charter for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, T.I.A.S. No.

1589, 4 Bevans 20, 27 [hereinafter Tokyo Charter]. The Tokyo Charter was not a treaty but
a special proclamation by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur on January 19, 1946.
65. Control Council Law, Official Gazette of the Control Council for Germany, No. 3,
Jan. 1946, reprinted in 1 THm LAW OF WAR: A DOCUMENTARY HIsToRY (L. Friedman ed.,1971).
66. Id. art. VI. The Tokyo Charter duplicates this language in its definition of crimes
against humanity. Tokyo Charter, supra note 64, art. 5(c), 4 Bevans at 28. The Tokyo
Charter omits the listing of particular crimes in its definition of war crimes. Id. art. 5(b), 4
Bevans 28.

1994]

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The definition of crimes against humanity in Council Control Law No.
10 lists some inhumane acts:(c) crimes against humanity [are] atrocities and offenses, including
but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation,
imprisonment, torture, rape, or other inhumane acts committed
against any civilian population ....67

The Nuremberg Charter, the Tokyo Charter, and the Council
Control Law declare that these acts violate customary law, but they do

not discuss how this conclusion was reached. This section indicatesthat this conclusion was based on sound legal doctrine.
Customary international law is the general practice of states
which, over a period of time, becomes binding law through repetition
and adoption.68 While multilateral treaties play an important role indefining, identifying or creating rules derived from custom, "the material of customary international law is to be looked for primarily in theactual practice and opinio juris of States."6 9 Section 102(2) of the Restatement of Foreign Relations Law reflects this, stating that custom67. Control Council Law, supra note 65, art. 11(c) (emphasis added). Control Council
Law No. 10 defined war crimes as: "[a]trocities of offenses against persons or property
constituting violations of the laws or customs of war, including, but not limited to, murder,
ill treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose, of the civilian populatreatment of prisoners of %%ar...."Id.art.
tion from occupied territory, murder or ill
II(b).
68. The Statute of the International Court of Justice identifies -international custom,
as evidence of a general practice accepted as law." Statute of the International Court ofJustice, June 26, 1945, art. 38(b), 59 Stat. 1055. Moreover, the general principles of law
recognized by civilized nations is a source of international law. Id. art. 3S(c). A useful test
for showing international custom is set out by the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights: "a) a concordant practice by a number of states with reference to a type of situation falling within the domain of international relations; b) a continuation or repetition of
the practice over a considerable period of time; c) a conception that the practice is requiredby or consistent with prevailing international law; and d) general acquiescence in the practice by other states." Case 9647 (Death Penalty Case), Inter-Am. C.H.R. 147, 166, 0EAP
ser. LI/VIL71, doe. 9 rev. 1 (1987); see Karen Parker & Lyn B. Neylon, Jhs Cogcns: Compelling the Law of Human Rights, 12 HAsTiNGs INT'L & CoMP. L. REx. 411,417 (19S9);sce
generally IAN BROiWNLIE, PRINCIPLES OF PUiLic IN-TERNATiOAL L.NW (4th ed. 1990); T.
MERON, HuNta_ RIGHTS AND HUMANrrARLAN Noss AS CUSTOMARY LAW (19S9).
69. Continental Shelf (Libya v. Malta), 1985 I.CJ. 12, at 29 (June 3). State practiceincludes any act, articulation, or other behavior of a state that discloses the state's conscious attitude with respect to its recognition of a customary rule. In the North Sea cas s,
the Court stated that:
Not only must the acts concerned amount to a settled practice, but they must also
be such, or be carried out in such a way, as to be evidence of a belief that thispractice is rendered obligatory by the existence of a rule of law requiring it. The
need for such a belief, i.e., the existence of a subjective element, is implicit in thevery notion of the opinio juris sive necessitatis.

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

ary international law "results from a general and consistent practice ofstates which is followed by them from a sense of legal obligation. ' 70
Although no rule establishes the number of states that must follow a particular practice for it to become a custom, complete universality is not required. 71 A state need not act in perfect conformity
with the law at all times to be shown to recognize a rule of customarylaw.72 Codification of a norm in treaty form or municipal laws of aparticular country is not necessary to bind that country to the customary norm.73 Codification by other states and municipal laws of otherstates may serve as evidence of a customary norm.7 4
North Sea Continental Shelf (F.R.G. v. Den.; F.R.G. v. Neth.) 1969 I.C.J. 4, 44 (Feb. 20);
see also M. VILLIGER, CUSTOMARY INTERNATIONAL LAW AND TREATIES 4 (1985);
BROWNLIE, supra note 68, at 4-11.
70. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 10-2(2) (1987). Customary international law is judicially enforceable in national courts. E.g. United States v.
Smith, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 153 (1820) (customary law regarding piracy); Paquete Habana,
175 U.S. 677, 700 (1900) (customary law regarding coastal fishing and war); Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942) (customary rules of war); Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F.2d 876 (2d Cir.
1980) (customary law on torture). The process for determining the content of customary
law in United States courts requires "consulting the work of jurists, writing professedly on
public law; or by the general usage and practice of nations; or by judicial decisions recognizing and enforcing that law." Smith, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat) at 160-61. Later courts haveconcurred with this formula. For example, in Paquete Habana, the Court determined that
customary international law is found by studying the "customs and usages of civilized nations; and as evidence of these, the works of jurists and commentators." Paquete Habana,
175 U.S. at 700 (citing Hilton v. Guyot, 159 U.S. 113, 163-64,214-15 (1894)). The Statute of
the International Court of Justice follows this same formula, which itself is considered customary law: "(d) subject to the provisions of Article 59, judicial decisions and the teachingsof the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations as subsidiary means for thedetermination of the rules of law." Statute of the International Court of Justice, art. 38(d),59 Stat. 1055.
71. Case 9647, Inter-Am. C.H.R. at 167, OEA/ser. L/V/II71, doc. 9 rev. 1 (1987); seealso, Louis B. Sohn, "Generally Accepted" InternationalRules, 6 WASH. L. REV. 1073, 1074
(1986).
72. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua, (Nicar. v. U.S.) 1986
I.C.J. 14, 88 (June 27). "The Court does not consider that, for a rule to be established ascustomary, the corresponding practice must be in absolutely rigorous conformity with therule." Id.
73. The International Court of Justice considered what factors must be present to create customary law from a treaty or treaty provision in the North Sea ContinentalShelf case.
1969 I.C.J. at 41-43. Denmark and The Netherlands claimed that the boundary rule of theConvention on the Continental Shelf treaty had become customary law and therefore binding on non-party Germany. The Court, in disagreeing, gave the following test: The treaty
or treaty provision must be norm-creating in character; there must be wide-spread andrepresentative state practice even by non-party states; there must be indication of the normin the opinion juris; and a sufficient lapse of time. Id. at 41-42. Time could be short if theother factors are strongly present. Id.
74. For example, in Paquete Habana the Court found rules from, inter alia, royal orders of 1403, treaties of 1521, scholarly works from 1661, and an 1894 treaty between Japan

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

The status of customary international law at the time of the jugun
ianfu program is important because prior to World War II, relatively
few treaties existed that codified the existing customary international
human rights norms, only a few of which had been ratified by Japan.75
At the same time, a number of treaties existed that codified rules of
warfare-some dating to the Middle Ages7 6 However, except for theHague Convention of 1907,77 Japan was not a party to them. 73
A.

Customary International Law Prohibiting Rape and Other
Forms of Torture

While all forms of torture were condemned long prior to WorldWar II, torture in the form of rape had received special attention as aparticularly grave offense in international law. 79 As early as the sixteenth century, rape began to be specifically mentioned in treaties,
primarily in bilateral ones. For example, the 1785 Treaty of Amity
and China binding on the United States in 1900. Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. at 6S7-7&).
The International Law Commission listed the following as classical forms of evidence ofcustomary norms: "treaties, decisions of national and international courts, national legizlation, diplomatic correspondence, opinions of national legal advisors, and practice of international organizations." Report of the International Law Commission to the General
Assembly, [1950] 2 Y.B. Int'l L. Comm'n 364, 368-72, U.N. Doe.A11316!SERAJ1950.
75. Japan ratified the International Labour Organization Convention Concerning
Forced or Compulsory Labour (No. 29), June 28, 1930, 39 U.N.T.S. 55 [hereinafter ILO
Convention (No. 29)], in force for Japan on May 1, 1932. Japan also ratified the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, opened forsignature Sept. 30, 1921, 9 L.N.T.S. 416, in force for Japan on Dec. 15, 1925.
76. One of the earliest set of laws regulating the conduct of hostilities was a law imposed by the government of the army by Richard II of England in 13S6. See Yoc,tu 4DPA
KuusHA-U
i, DIGNrrY AND HONOUR OF WOMEN AS BASIC AND FUNDA .IENTAL Hvm-.i
RIGHTs 3 (1982).
77. The Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV) and Annexed Regulations,Oct. 18, 1907, 36 Stat. 2277, 1 Bevans 631 [hereinafter Hague Convention of 1907].
78. The Hague Convention was signed by Aimaro Sato for Japan and subsequently
ratified by Japan.
79. Prior to World War H, practically all mention of rape in international law %as in
the context of armed conflict (humanitarian) law. The question of whether rape %as forbidden in war was raised very early in modem legal history. See, e.g., PiErNo BEtju, DERE
rhLrAI ET BELLO TRACTATUS 177-78 (Herbert Nutting trans., 1936) (original published in 1563) (crime of rape was traditionally punished by death); ALIERico GEsasu,
DE Iunn BELLI Lm~i Trns 257 (John Rolph trans., 1935) (original published in 1612)("[T]o violate the honour of women will always be held to be unjust. ...[Iltis not lawful
for any captive to be visited with insult. He is foolish who connects with the laws of war
the unlawful acts committed in time of war. In this connexion I make no allowance forretaliation."). Hugo Grotius asserted in 1625 that, although there appeared to b- twoviews at the time, the better view was that under the law of nations rape should not go
unpunished in war any more than in peace. HUGO GROTIUS, DE Jurx BELLS Ac PACISLTBRi TRES 161 (Francis Kelsey trans., 1949) (original published in 1625).

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

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and Commerce between the United States and Prussia' provided: "If
war should arise between the two contracting parties... all womenand children ...shall not be molested in their persons."81

The notion of rape as a war crime or crime against humanity82
also began to appear in domestic law and in treaties relatively early.
For example, General Winfield Scott's General Orders 20 set forth in
184783 identifies rape as an offense: "[T]he honor of the United States
and the interest of humanity imperiously demand that every crime' 4
enumerated [in Article 2] should be severely punished."
The Lieber Code,' the first international attempt to codify therules of war, also singled out rape. 6 Lieber based the code primarilyon his study of existing international customs of war, with a special
concern to codify the protection of the civilian population or noncombatants during times of war. To this end, the Lieber Code also
provides:The United States acknowledge and protect, in hostile countries occupied by them, religion and morality; ...the persons of the inhabitants especially those of women; and the sacrednessof domestic
relations. Offenses to the contrary shall be rigorously punished. 7

The Lieber code was eventually adopted by Prussia, the Netherlands,
France, Russia, Spain, and Great Britain.88
The Declaration of Brussels of 1874,89 which further developed

the laws of war, provides: "The honour and rights of the family...
80. Treaty on Amity and Commerce, July 9-Sept.10, 1785, U.S.-Prussia, 8 Stat. 84.

81. Id. art. XXIII.
82. The term "crime against humanity" should be interpreted as acts that are so atrocious that all of humanity suffers the damage and demands redress.
83. See WILLIAM E. BIRKHIMER, MILITARY GOVERNMENT AND MARTIAL LAW 581(2d ed. 1904).
84. Id.
85. The Lieber Code (General Orders 100), War Dept. Classification No. 1.12, Oct. 8,1863, reprintedin 1 Tim LAW OF VAR: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY, supra note 65, at 158.
86. Id. art. XLIV. "All wanton violence.., all rape, wounding, maiming or killing...
[is] prohibited under penalty of death, or other such severe punishment as may seen adequate ....
" Id. Francis Lieber, a Prussian born in Berlin around 1800, emigrated to theUnited States around 1830 after having fought under Blucher at Waterloo and receiving
war injuries at the Battle of Namur. He also fought in the Greek War of Independence
and was imprisoned in Prussia. He became the leading scholar of armed conflict law of his
day and, in the code that bears his name, sought to codify existing customary norms. See
Baxter, The FirstModem Codification of the Law of War, Francis Lieber and General Or.
ders No. 100, INT'L REv. OF THE RED CROss, Apr. 1963, at 131, and May 1963, at 234.
87. Lieber Code, supra note 85, art. XXXVII (emphasis added).
88. Id.

89. The Declaration of Brussels of 1874, reprintedin 1 THE LAW OF WAR: A Docu.
MENTrARY HISTORY, supra note 65, at 194.

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

should be respected. . . ..9 Although the declaration was neveradopted as a treaty, its provisions found their way into military manuals of various countries. 91

The Hague Convention of 190792 contains a more general prohibition of torture and other atrocities carried out against both combatants and civilians.93 Regarding civilians in occupied territories, it
provides, "[F]amily honour and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be
respected. Private property cannot be confiscated.1 94 The phrase"family honor and rights" should be read to encompass the right ofwomen to be protected from rape, other forms of torture, and forced
prostitution. Also, because every major religion condemns rape, thereference to "religious convictions" supports an interpretation of theHague Conventions as prohibiting rape, torture, and forced prostitution during war.95
The Hague Convention of 1907 was not intended to be exhaustive
in its enumeration of prohibited acts. To cover all cases not sufficiently addressed by or omitted from the Convention, the drafters included the famous Martens Clause:
Until a more complete code of laws of war has been issued ... incases not included in the Regulations... the inhabitantsand belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principlesof the law of nations, as they result from the usages establishedthe laws of humanity and the dictatesamong civilized peoples, from96of the public conscience.
90. Id.art. XX.VII.

91. KHusHALAt,, supra note 76, at 7.
92. Hague Convention of 1907, supra note 77, 36 Stat. 2277, 1 Bevans 631. IbL convention closely follows an earlier convention. Convention with Respect to the Las andCustoms of War on Land (Hague II) and Annexed Regulations, July 29, 1S99, 32 Stat.
1803, T.S. No. 403 [hereinafter Hague Convention of 1S99].
93. The Lieber Code, however, greatly influenced the final text of the Hague Conventions and Regulations. See JAhms B. Scorr, ThE HAGUE PEACE CoNmu-EC& or 1S9
AND 1907 525-27 (1909); see also James Childress, Francis Lieber's Interprctationof theLaws of War: GeneralOrders 100 in the Contert of His Life and Thought, 21 A', . Junis.
34 (1976).
94. Hague Convention of 1907, supra note 77, annex art. 46, 36 Stat. 2277, 1 Bevan at651.
95. KHusHALAma, supra note 76, at 10.
96. Hague Convention of 1907, supra note 77, pmbl., 36 Stat. 2277, 1 Bevans at 633(emphasis added); see also Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 14 (1942). Martens, a Rwiansoldier, was a member of his country's delegation to the Hague Conference. See Stanizlaw
E. Nahlik, The Role of the 1977 Geneva Protocolsin the Progressof Armed Conflict Law in
EuRoPE-AN CONFERENCE ON HUmANiTARIAN L.'W 11, 17 (1979) citing TAE L,%v..3 oF
ARmD CoNFU.cr (Dietrich Schindler & Jiri Toman eds., 1973). Martens also drafted aHastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

Thus, acts viewed as insufficiently addressed in the operative text canbe shown to be condemned by the Martens Clause.
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 have served as the basis of the law of armed conflicts (humanitarian law) since its passage,
and they have been recognized for their norm-producing force by two
postwar international tribunals. In 1946, the International Military
Tribunal stated in its judgment: "By 1939 the rules of land warfare laid
down in the 1907 Convention had been recognized by all civilized nations and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customsof war."' Similarly, the International Military Tribunal for the Far
East stated that in its judgment the Hague Conventions of 1907 was"[g]ood evidence of the customary law of nations to be considered by
the Tribunal, along with all other available evidence, in determining
the customary law to be applied in any given situation."9The Hague Conventions were first applied during World War I.
After the war, the Commission on the Responsibilities of the Authorsof the War and the Enforcement of Penalties (Versailles Commission)
was created by the preliminary peace conference to inquire into andreport on "the facts as to breaches of the laws and customs of war
committed by the forces of the German Empire and their Allies." 99
The Versailles Commission found Germany guilty of numerous war
crimes despite "explicit regulations [of] established customs [and10the]1
1
clear dictates of humanity." 0 These war crimes included rape.
similar phrase in the preamble to the Hague Convention of 1899: "[P]opulations... remain
under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result fromthe usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity and the requirements of the public conscience." Hague Convention of 1899, supra note 92, pmbl., 32
Stat. 1803, T.S. No. 403.
97. JUDGMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL FOR THE TRIAL OF MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS, 1946, CmD 6964, at 64. This postwar finding is especially significant
because the Hague Convention of 1907 includes a clause precluding application "except
between contracting powers and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the convention." Hague Convention of 1907, supra note 77, art. 2, 36 Stat. 2277. 1 Bevans at 640.
98. The United Nations War Crimes Commission, Judgment of the InternationalMilitary Tribunalfor the FarEast of 1948, 15 L. REP. OF TRIAL OF WAR CRINI. 13 (1949).
99. Violations of the Laws and Customs of War: Report of Majority and Dissenting
Reports of American and JapaneseMembers of the Commission on Responsibilities,Conference of Paris, 1919, reprinted in 14 Am. J. INT'L L. 95 (Supp. 1920).
100. Report of the Commission on the Responsibilities of the Authors of War and the
Enforcement of Penalties,reprinted in 14 Am. J. INT'L L. 95 (1920).
101. Id.

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

B. Customary International Law Prohibiting Slavery and Forced
Labor
Slavery and forced labor also received strong international condemnation long before World War H. Whereas international condemnation of rape usually appeared in instruments relating to armed
conflict, condemnation of slavery and forced labor was prominent ingeneral international law. That slavery and forced labor were the solesubjects of a number of treaties indicates its importance in the prewar
period.
The 1815 Declaration Relative to the Universal Abolition of the
Slave Trade" 2 was the first international instrument to condemn slavery and, with emphasis, the slave trade." 3 International focus on theslave trade continued with the Treaty of London, 104 the General Act
of Berlin of 1885,105 and the General Act of the Brussels Conferenceof 1890.1' By the early twentieth century, emphasis had shifted tocomplete suppression of slavery in all forms.10 7 At the time, theCouncil of the League of Nations appointed a Temporary Slavery
Commission whose reportls led to the creation and promulgation of
the 1926 Slavery Convention, 10 9 which defines slavery as "the status or
102. Declaration Relative to the Universal Abolition of the Slave Trade, Feb. 8. ISIS,
63 Consol. T.S. No. 473.
103. The Declaration asserts that the slave trade had always been viewed by "just andenlightened men at all times as repugnant to the principles of humanity and universal morality." I&; see generally BEmJAhnN WHitAKER, SLAVERy, U.N. Doc. EfCN.4!SubZ20
Rev.1, Sales No. EI84.XIV.1 (1984); Ved Nanda & M. Cherif Bassiouni, Slavrl and the
Slave Trade: Steps Toward Eradication,12 SArTA CL-aRA L. REv. 424 (1972); M. Cherif
Bassiouni, Enslavement as an InternationalCrime, 23 N.Y.U. J.IN-T'L L. & Pot. 445 (19A).
104. Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, Dec. 20, 1841, 92 Conol.
T.S. No. 437 [hereinafter Treaty of London]. The Treaty of London analogizcd the slave
trade to piracy, which was already recognized as an international crime. See, e.go,
UnitedStates v. Smith, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat) 153, 160-61 (1820).
105. General Act of the Conference of Berlin Concerning the Congo, Feb. 20, 1SS5, 10Martens Nouveau Recueil (ser. 2) 414, reprinted in 3 Am.J.INr'L L. 7 (Supp. 19).
106. Convention Relative to the Slave Trade and Importation into Africa of Firearms,
Ammunition, Spirituous Liquor, July 2, 1890,27 Stat. 8S6, T.S. No. 33 [hereinafter General Act of the Brussels Conference].
107. See eg., The Convention Revising the General Act of Berlin and the General Act
and Declaration of Brussels, Sept. 10, 1919, 49 Stat. 3027, T.S. No. 877.
108. See N.O. Umozurike, The African Slave Trade and the Attitudes of International
Law Towards It, 16 How. L.J. 334 (1971).
109. Slavery Convention, Sept. 25, 1926, 60 L.N.T.S. 253. This convention remains theleading international instrument on slavery and has not been ratified by Japan. The Protocol amending the Slavery Convention, Dec. 7, 1953,7 U.S.T. 479, 182 U.N.T.S. 51, substitutes the United Nations and its mechanisms for the League of Nations, The
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions
and Practices Similar to Slavery, Sept. 7, 1956, 18 U.S.T. 3201, 266 U.N.T.S. 40, augments

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[Vol. 17:497

condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to
the right of ownership are exercised." 0Forced labor was addressed in International Labour Organization
Convention (No. 29) Concerning Forced Labour, which entered into
force on May 1, 1932.11 The Forced Labour Convention defines
forced labor as "all work or service which is exacted from any person
under the menace of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself voluntarily." 112 While the convention does not prohibit
forced labor in its entirety, 113 forced labor may only be required of"adult able-bodied males,
and then for no more than sixty days11
and with the same prevailing work-days and wages as for voluntarylabor." 6 Japan ratified this convention in 1932.
Substantial prewar efforts were made to also promulgate international agreements to end the slavery-like practice of forced prostitution." 7 First, the International Agreement for the Suppression of theWhite Slave Traffic" s condemned forced prostitution and provided
coordination of information regarding the procurement of women andgirls for prostitution and immoral purposes by abuse or compulsion.11 9
Six years later, further efforts were made to prohibit forced prostituthe definitions to include slave-like practices such as debt bondage, forced marriage, ortransfer of women and child labor. Id. art. 1,18 U.S.T. at 3204. It also expands culpability,
id. art. 6, 18 U.S.T. at 3206, and denies states the right to make reservations. Id. art. 9, 18
U.S.T. at 3206.
110. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, supra note 109, art. 1, 18 U.S.T. at 3204.
111. See ILO Convention (No.29), supra note 75, 39 U.N.T.S. 55.
112. Id. art. 2, 39 U.N.T.S. at 58.
113. The Convention allows forced labor for military service and normal civic obligations, as a consequence of criminal conviction and in cases of emergency. Id. art. 2.2 (a)(e), 39 U.N.T.S. at 58.
114. Id. art. 11, 39 U.N.T.S. at 64.
115. Id. art. 12, 39 U.N.T.S. at 64.
116. Id. arts. 13, 14, 39 U.N.T.S. at 66.
117. Forced prostitution, also referred to as "white slavery," is equally condemned ininternational law as a slave-like practice. A number of pre-World War II treaties addressed this particular issue. See, e.g., International Agreement for the Suppression of theWhite Slave Traffic, Mar. 18, 1904, 1 L.N.T.S. 83.; Convention for the Suppression of theWhite Slave Traffic, May 4, 1910, 211 Consol. T.S. No. 45. Japan was well aware of theinternational condemnation of these practices. A letter dated February 23, 1938 from theHome Ministry to the prefectural governors expressed concern that the "recruitment activities... run ... counter to the spirits of the international convention for prohibiting tradein women." Brothels were Controlledto Preserve Military Honor, JAPAN TimNS, Aug. 6,
1992, at 3.
118. International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, supranote 117, 1 L.N.T.S. 83.
119. Id.; see also Nanda & Bassiouni, supra note 103, at 439.

19941Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

tion with the International Convention for the Suppression of theWhite Slave Traffic.Y0 This treaty expanded on the first by providing
for criminal punishment for offenders, but left the subject matterwithin the domain of individual nation-states.121
By the end of World War I, white slavery was condemned as awar crime by the Versailles Commission, and its work was echoed in
the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children'1 and the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women of Full Age. 1" These treaties
mandate enforcement duties on the states and require the international community to provide information and cooperation. 4
C. Jus Cogens and Erga Omnes
Rape, torture, and slavery are violations of jus cogens (peremptory) norms"2 and of obligations erga omnes.1" Jus cogens rules are
120. See Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, supra note 117,211
Consol.T.S. No. 45.
121. Nanda & Bassiouni, supra note 103, at 439.
122. International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, Sept. 30, 1921, 9 L.N.T.S. 416, reprinted in 18 Am.J. INT'L L. 130 (Supp, 19)24); see
NATALIE HEVENER, INTERNATIONAL LW AND THE STATUS OF WOMEN 92 (19S3). Japan
ratified this convention on December 15, 1925.
123. International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women of Full Age.
Oct. 11, 1933, 150 L.N.T.S. 431, reprinted in 6 INTERNATONAL LEGISLATION: 1909-1945
469 (1L Hudson ed., 1972); see HEVENER, supra note 122, at 98,

124. See, eg., International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Wcomen andChildren, supra note 122, art. 2 ("The contracting countries to the Convention agree topunish anyone who, by means of fraud, violence, threats, abuse of power or other measure,
coerces or kidnaps a female who has become of age vith the intention of making her
engage in a loathsome profession to satisfy other persons' sexual desires,").
125. A literal definition ofjus cogens is "know" or "cogent" law. Parker & Ney'lon,
supra note 68, at 414; see also Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua, (Nicar. v. U.S.) 1986 LC.J. 14 (June 27) (separate opinion of Judge Singh and separate
opinion of Judge Sette-Camara); Case 9647, Inter-Am. C.H.R. 147, 166, 16S-73, OEAM er.
LJV/IL71,doc. 9 rev. 1 (applying prohibition of execution of minors against United States,
a persistent objector, because of jus cogens); see generally BROwN.LIM, supra note 6S;
Gordon A. Christenson, Jus Cogens: GuardingInterests Fundamentalto International Sciety, 28 VA. J. INT'L L. 585 (1988); CONFERENCE ON INTMRNATIONAL L.w,PArEPs AiD
PROCEEDIrNGs 11, THm CONCEr OF Jus Cogens in International Law (1967). Older com-mentaries use the term crime jure gentium. See, e.g., T.J.L.w-EV~
c-, THE Pi',cifruEs OF
INTERNATIONAL LAW § 103 (4th ed. 1910); CHRISTIAN WoLxr, Jus Gru,'-nvm (1764).

126. The International Court of Justice has articulated the doctrine of state obligations
erga omnes in Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Co. (BeIg. v. Spain) 1970 ICJ.3,32(Feb. 5). Erga omnes obligations of a State are owed to the international community as awhole. Erga onnes means "flowing to all" and according to the Court, "by their very
nature are the concern of all
States." Id.These obligations, like those of jus cogcns, bindstates independently of any treaty obligations. See W. Paul Gormley, The Right to Life andHastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

the highest rules of international law 27 and function as "very strong
rule[s] of customary international law, '1 28 similar to an international
constitutional law, overturning all that is contrary.1 29 In the wartime
context, violations of these jus cogens norms are war crimes andcrimes against humanity.1 30 While jus cogens norms may address individuals and their rights under international law, erga omnes obligations address duties that states largely owe other states. 13 ' For
example, Australia claimed that France had an obligation erga omnes
to abstain from nuclear testing in its case brought to the International
Court of Justice. 32 Recently, the Organization of American Statesand guarantee civil and politdeclared that the obligation to respect 33
ical fights is an obligation erga omnes.1
Rape, torture, and slavery must be viewed as contravening jus
cogens by 1937 because these violations were included as war crimes
by the Versailles Commission and the post-World War II tribunals andIN
the Rule of Non-Derogability:Peremptory Norms of Jus Cogens, in THE RioHT To LIu-r

1985) (discussing similarities between
rights erga omnes and rights jus cogens); Attila Tanzi, Is Damage a Distinct Condition for
INTERNATIONAL LAW 120 (B.G. Ramcharan ed.,the Existence of an Internationally Wrongful Act, in UNITED NATIONS CODIFICATION Ov
STATE REsPONsmLrrY 1, 15-20 (Marina Spineda & Bruno Simma eds., 1987) (discussing
erga omnes and jus cogens).
127. Committee of United States Citizens in Nicar. v. Reagan, 859 F.2d 929, 935 (D.C.
Cir. 1988).
128. A. D'AMATO, Ti CONcEPT OF CusToM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 132 n.73 (1971).
129. Mark W. Janis, The Nature of Jus Cogens, 3 CONN. J.INT'L L. (1988).
130. See Parker & Neylon, supra note 68, at 429, 434.
131. See Juste Ruiz, Las obligaciones erga omnes en derecho internacionalpublico, in
EsTuIOS DE DERECHO INTERNACIONAL 230 (1979); Paolo Piccone, Obblighi reciproci c
obblighi erga omnes nel campo della protezione internationale dell'ambiente marino
dall'inquinamento,in Dmrrrro INTERNAZIONALE E PROTEZIONE DELL'AMBIENTE MARINO(Vincenzo Starace, ed. 1983), cited in Tanzi, supra note 126, at 16.
132. Nuclear Tests (Austl. v. Fr.), 1973 I.C.J. Pleadings (1 Nuclear Tests) 322 (July 12);
Nuclear Tests (Austl. v. Fr.; N.Z. v. Fr.), 1974 I.C.J. 253, 457 (Dec. 20). The Court has
subsequently invoked jus cogens in circumstances where erga omnes might be viewed as
more exacting, thereby further blurring the already hard to discern distinctions between
the two. See, e.g., Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicar. v.
U.S.) 1986 I.C.J. 14, para. 190 (June 27) (discussing principle of prohibition of use of force
in international affairs as having character of jus cogens). In 1949, in language reflecting
both jus cogens and erga omnes, the Court ruled that failing to warn that mines had beenlaid in areas where there is an international right of passage was a violation of the principles "underlying" its expression in certain treaties and was a violation of "certain general
and well recognized principles, namely: elementary considerations of humanity, even moreexacting in peace than in war." Corfu Channel (U.K. v. Alb.), 1949 I.C.J. 4, 22 (Apr. 9).
133. Statement by Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Organization ofAmerican States, Press Communique no. 13193, May 25, 1993 (on file with author).

19941Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

Control Council listings of war crimes.'34 Slavery is widely acknowl3 5 Inedged to be one of the first crimes to be a violation jus cogens.-'
Barcelona Traction, the International Court of Justice singled out protection from slavery as one of two examples of obligations erga omnes
arising out of human rights law. 13 6 International norms on the inhumane treatment of civilians and prisoners of war, rape, torture, enforced labor, and other rights violations presented by these cases arealso considered to have been governed by jus cogens long before
World War I.137
D. Postwar Developments in Human Rights and Humanitarian
Law
Shortly after World War II, the international community began tocodify international human rights norms and customary internationallaw. The two main documents are the Charter of the United Nations'38 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Universal
Declaration).' 39 The Universal Declaration condemns slavery,14 1 gov134. Parker & Neylon, supranote 6S, at 430-35, 437-3S; sce also RESTATE.lE'r tTnrxD)
OF FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 702 (1987).

Because a source of jus cogcns reltin- to

wartime incidents is the dictates of the public conscience, a way to assessjus cogcns standing for human rights norms is to monitor public reaction when presented with relevant
information. The public conscience has unquestionably been deeply affected by Jhpan's
use of sex slaves.
135. AMos S. HERSHEY, ESSENmEAIS OF INTERNATIONAL PvUIC LAW At,D OC15A'mdZATION 230 (1921); LEAGun OF NATIONS Co\,ENAmr art. . xII (purpose of League toCo i.lzsslor To -Ir
eradicate slavery); see also REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL LAW.%v
GENERAL ASSEmBLY, U.N. Doe. AICN.4JSer.A/Add.1 (1963). "[Prohibition against slavery] is one of the oldest and best settled rules of js cogens." L. International Court ofJustice Judge Manfred Lachs even posits that the concept of jus cogens itself e'.0alhed toaddress the special gravity of slavery. Manfred Lachs, The Lai- of Treatics: Sme Gcncra!
Reflections on the InternationalLaw Commission, in RECULEIL D'EVTDES DE Dnorr INTEr.
NATIONAL EN Ho~MiAGE A PAUL GUGGENHEIM 391, 399 (196S),
136. Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Co. (BeIg. v. Spain) 1970 LCJ. 3.32 (Feb. 5)
The other human rights norm identified as an erga omnes obligation is racial di crimination. Id. The Court also stated that the prohibition against aggression and genocide arealso obligations erga omnes. Id.
137. The language of the Martens clause set out above is essentially a statement of ins
cogens. Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919, 11 Martens Nouveau Recucil ( -rr. 3) 32-, 2Bevans 43. Findings of the Versailles Commission also reflect the Ius cogcns status of humanitarian norms.
138. "The Purposes of the United Nations are: to ... promot[e] and encourap[e] respectfor human rights and fundamental freedoms." U.N. CmRTR art. 1.
139. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217(11), U.N. Doe A.'l
(1948) [hereinafter Universal Declaration]. The Universal Declaration is reconized as astatement of binding customary international law. PROCLA.MATION or Tina:a, U N. Doz
AICONF.32141, U.N. Sales No. E.6SXIV2 (196S). A number of human rights treaties %%cresubsequently signed. See, eg., International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural

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[Vol. 17:497

eminent-ordered killing in any form,14 1 and "torture... cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. ' 14 It also grants
everyone the right to free choice of employment at fair and adequate
wages.' 43

Modem usage also evinces the trend toward incorporating slaverelated practices into the universal condemnation of slavery. For example, a 1975 U.N. report stated, "It is generally agreed that the definition [of slavery] should be flexible enough to be applicable to any
new form of slavery which might emerge in the future and not to limit
the scope of investigation of all its possible manifestations." 144 A 1982
U.N. report on slavery' 45 sets out a number of contemporary slaverylike practices involving women and forced labor 146 that reinforce themodem trend towards a flexible definition of slavery, which encompasses systematic rape.
The Geneva Conventions of 1949 followed the Universal Declaration and also condemned these violations. 47 Geneva Convention
IV specifically protects civilians and includes the right to be free fromslavery, most types of forced labor,'14 and rape.1 49 These conventions
Rights, Dec. 16, 1966, 993 U.N.T.S. 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
Dec. 16, 1966, 999 U.N.T.S. 171; see also UNITED NATIONS, HUMAN Rio-rrs: A COMPILA.
TION OF INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS (1988) (containing texts of significant human rights
instruments).
140. UniversalDeclaration,supra note 139, art. 4 ("No one shall be held in slavery orservitude; slavery and servitude shall be prohibited in all their forms.").

141. Id. art. 3.
142. Id. art. 5.
143. Id. art. 23.
144. SuB-COMM'N ON PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION, WORKiNo GROUP ON CON-TEMPORARY FORMS OF SLAVERY, U.N. Doe. EICN.4Sub.2AC.23, para. 12 (1975).
145. WHITAKER, supra note 103.
146. Id. at 11-18.
147. Geneva Convention I of 1949, Oct. 21, 1950,6 U.S.T. 3114,75 U.N.T.S. 31 (armed
forces in the field); Geneva Convention II of 1949, Oct. 21, 1950, 6 U.S.T. 3217, 75
U.N.T.S. 85 (armed forces at sea); Geneva Convention III of 1949, Oct. 21, 1950. 6 U.S.T.
3316, 75 U.N.T.S. 135; Geneva Convention IV of 1949, Oct. 21, 1950, 6 U.S.T. 3516, 75
U.N.T.S. 267 (civilians).
148. Geneva Convention IV, supra note 147, arts. 27,51,95,147,6 U.S.T. at 3536,3550,
3578, 3618. Article 51 allows forced labor in certain war-related circumstances such as
feeding or sheltering the civilian population, but only with fair wages and many other restrictions. Article 147 identifies grave breaches and includes inhumane treatment applicable to slavery.
149. In a general condemnation of inhumane treatment, rape is singled out: "Women
shall be especially protected against.., rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault." Id. art. 27, 6 U.S.T. at 3536.

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

brand rape and civilian torture as grave breaches of humanitarian
5 war crimes in international law.151
law ---The Geneva Conventions of 1949 restates the Martens clause set
forth in the Hague Convention of 1907 and provide that even if a signatory party to the Geneva Conventions denounces the conventions,
it remains bound by "the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the152laws of humanity and the dictates of the public conscience."

IV. COMPENSATIONA.

Right to Compensation1

People wronged are entitled to appropriate compensation. 3
This right in some form is one of the most basic principles of law,
ithout which the rule of law is not possible." As stated by former
Calcutta High Court Judge Roy, "[It is] a timeless axiom of justice
without which social life is unthinkable, that a wrong done to an individual must be redressed by the offender himself or by someone else
150. Id. art. 147,6 U.S.T. 35618. When parties to the Geneva Conventions are a%are ofgrave breaches being committed, they are all obliged "to search for persons alleged to havecommitted or ordered to have committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such p-rsons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts." Id. art. 146, 6 U.S.T. 3516. An
identical provision is in each of the other three Geneva Conventions of 1949.
151. Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes andCrimes Against Humanity, Nov. 11, 1970, 754 U.N.T.S. 73; see U.N. Com'tr o- HUMAtN
RIGHTS; RAPE AND ABUSE OF WONMEN rN THE TERRITORY OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA,

U.N. Doc. EICN.4/1994/5, at 6 (1993). "Rape constitutes an extremely grave violation ofinternational humanitarian law as recognized by Article 27 (2) of the Fourth Geneva Convention.., and is defined as a war crime according to Article 147 of the same convention.
The definition covers not only rape, but any attack on a women's honour." Id.
152. Geneva Convention Im, supra note 147, art. 142, 6 U.S.T. 3424; Geneva Convention IV, supra note 147, art. 158, 6 U.S.T. 3622.
153. In United States jurisprudence, this rule has perhaps the best expression in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (Cranch) 137, 163 (1803). "The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, %henever
he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection.
[Blackstone] says, 'it is a general and indisputable rule, that %here there is a legal right,
there is also a legal remedy by suit, or action at law, whenever that right is invaded.'" Id
154. Hugo Grotius listed the obligation to make restitution for wrongful acts fourth in
his five basic elements of law. GRoTius, supra note 79, at 12. A prominent Japanesescholar calls the Grotius fourth element or axiom self-evident. Furukawa Terumi, Punishment, in A NORmATnrE APPROACH TO VAR: PEACE, WAVR AND JUsTICE rN HUGo GRo.
Tus 221, 240 (Onuma Yasuki ed., 1993). Terumi says that the Grotius axioms areincorporated into legal systems. Ia

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

against whom the sanction of the community may be directed."'-' The right to redress following an international wrong is recognized byscholars as a fundamental principle of customary law.15 6 Recognitionof this right clearly pre-dates World War II, and it has been incorporated into both treaties and international legal opinions, the most celebrated being the Chorzow Factory case. 57
In the context of international law, the right to redress arises outof the international law concept of state responsibility, which is theduty of a state to compensate for breaches of its obligations.158 As thePermanent Court International of Justice stated, "[A]ny breach of anengagement invokes an obligation to make reparation." 15 9 Furthermore, reparations are required even though the precise amount of loss
cannot be clearly established. 160
In armed conflict (humanitarian) law, evidence of an understanding that states must pay for breaches predates the Hague Conventions.' 6 ' For example, one of the earliest cases decided by the155. Guha Roy, Is the Law of Responsibility of States for Injuries to Aliens a Part of
Universal International Law?, 55 Am.J. INT'L L. 863 (1961); see also Benjamin Ferencz,
Compensating Victims of the Crimes of War, 12 VA. J. INT'L L. 343 (1972).
156. THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
17-18 (1892). "The right of redress exists in the case of individuals.... Redress consists ofcompensation for injury inflicted and for its consequences." Id.; STUDY CONCERNING THIRIGHT TO RESTITUTION, COMPENSATION AND REHABILITATION FOR VICTIIS OF GROSSVIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS: PRELIMINARY REPORT,SUBMITED BY THEO VAN BOVEN, SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR, U.N. Doe. EICN.4Sub.2119901

10 (1990) (hereinafter vAN BOVEN). "There is no doubt that the obligation to provide forcompensation as a means to repair a wrongful act or a wrongful situation isa well established principle of international law." Id. BIN CHENG, GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF LAW ASAPPLIED BY INTERNATIONAL COURTS AND TRIBUNALS 169 (1953). "It is a principle ofinternational law that the breach of a legal duty involves an obligation to make reparations." Id.; see also Daisy Collins, The United States Owes Reparationsto the African States
for the Slave Trade, 16 How. L. J. 314, 320 (1971).
157. Chorzow Factory (Indemnity), 1928 P.C.I.J. (ser. A.) No. 17. In Chorzow Factory,
the Court also commented on reparation for breach of treaty, claiming that the right toreparation is an "indispensable complement ... [and need not] be stated in the convention." Id. at 29 (emphasis added). In a section called "The duty of humanity," Woolsey
writes: "[c]ruelty may also reach beyond the sphere of humanity; it may violate rights, andjustify self-protection and demand for redress." WOOLSEY, supra note 156, at 23.
158. See VAN BOVEN, supra note 156, para. 36.
159. Chorzow Factory, 1928 P.C.I.J at 29. "[R]eparation must, as far as possible, wipeout all consequences of the illegal act and re-establish the situation which would ... haveexisted if the act had not been committed." Id. at 47.
160. Id.
161. Grotius recognized the right to reparation for violations of the law of nations as
early as the seventeenth century. GROTIUS, supra note 79, Bk. I, ch. 20, § 1, and Bk. III,ch. 18, § 6; see also JOHN MOORE, 6 INTERNATIONAL LAW DIGEST 655 (1906). In Paquete
Habana,the United States Supreme Court ordered damages and costs to private claimants

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

fledgling U.S. Supreme Court discussed compensation for private
claimants for violations of the rules of war.162 By the mid-nineteenth
century, private suits for compensation were also upheld in state

courts of the United States. 163 Liability for these types of acts existed
even when the acts in question were not ordered by the state or wereunintentional." 6

The Hague Convention of 1907 clearly reflects this understandingof a duty to compensate in international law. It states, "A belligerent
party which violates the provisions of the said Regulations shall, if thecase demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible
for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces. 'qlLs
Other pre-World War II treaties specifically provided for individual claims. For example, the Treaty of Versaillesl' established mixed
arbitration tribunals for private persons to present damage claims
against Germany, even against the wishes of their own governments.' 67 There was also attention at the international level directed
at codifying some basic elements of compensation, especially in relation to state responsibility, for example the Harvard Draft.'" In theafter their vessel had been confiscated by the United States as a prize of war in violation ofa customary international law rule. Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677 (1900).
162. Ware v. Hylton, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 199, 279 (1796). "[These] rights [are] fully acquired by private persons during the war, more especially if derived from the laxv3 ofwar... [and] against the enemy, and in that case the individualmight be entitled to compensation." l (emphasis added).
163. See eg., Christian County Court v. Rankin, 63 Ky. (2 Duv.) 502, 505 (1866) (granting private compensation in action against Confederate soldiers for burning courthouse inviolation of "the laws of nations").
164. MooRE, supra note 161, at 758 (quoting 1885 statement from U.S. Secretary ofState Bayard: "[T]he mere fact that soldiers ... commit acts 'without orders from theirsuperiors in command,' does not relieve their government from the liability for suchacts."). One pre-World War c1
case required the United States to pay compensation to theparents of a girl killed by an American soldier. Decision of the General Claims Commission, United States and Mexico, Garcia v. United States 1926 (Docket No. 292) Dee. 3,
reprinted in 21 Am. J. INT'L L. 581 (1927).
165. Hague Convention of 1907, supra note 77, art. III, 36 Stat. 2277, 1 Bevans at 649(emphasis added).
166. Treaty of Peace with Germany (Treaty of Versailles), June 28, 1919,2 Bevans 43,
reprintedin 1 THE LAW OF WAR: A DocuNmNrARY HISTORY, supra note 65, at 842.
167. Id In addition to the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty Respecting the Establishment of the Central American Court of Justice (1907), while in force only ten years, aleo
provided for private claims. Central American Peace Conference: Central American
Court of Justice, Dec. 20, 1907,2 Martens Nouveau Recueil (ser. 3) 913, reprintedin 2 Am.
J. INr'L L. 231, 243 (Supp.).
168. See e.g., HarvardDraft of The Law of Responsibility of Statesfor DamagesDonein their Territory to the Personsor Property of Foreigners,23 AM J. INf'L L. 131 (Special
Number 1929) [hereinafter Harvard Draft]. Article 7 of the HarvardDraftprovides thatstates are responsible for injuries caused by an act or omission of the state. Id.

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[Vol. 17:497

process of developing the Harvard Draft, proposals from Japan included provisions that a state is responsible for both intentional andnegligent acts.169 Moreover, states generally aid their citizens in obtaining damages from foreign states only after private compensation
efforts fail.' 7 °The right to redress can be understood either as a norm of jus
cogens or as a fundamental principle of law. 171 Fundamental principles of law of civilized nations are a main source of international standards according to the statutes of both the prewar Permanent Court 17of2
International Justice and the postwar International Court of Justice.
The Permanent Court of International Justice affirms the "generalprinciples of law" aspect of the right to redress by declaring it "a prin173
ciple of international law, and even a general conception of law."'
The right to redress, including monetary compensation, wasstrongly set out in the postwar international human rights and humanitarian law instruments. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
provides the "right to an effective remedy by the competent national
tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by constitution or by law."' 74 The International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights also provides the right to effective remedy 175 andspecifically mandates an enforceable right to compensation for unlawful arrest or detention. 76 Regional human rights instruments also
169.

L'AssocIAION D. DROIT INTERNATIONAL DU JAPAN, DRAFT RULES PREPAREDBY THE KOKUSAIHO-GAKKWAI (1926), reprinted in 23 AM. J. INT'L L. (Special No. 1929).

170. "A State is not ordinarily responsible (under a duty to make reparations to another state) until the local remedies available to the injured alien have been exhausted."
HarvardDraft, supra note 168, at 133.
171. In the international community, the jus cogens nature of the right to redress is
especially self-evident, being clearly "indispensable to the existence of the law of nations as
an international legal order and the observance of which is required by all members of theinternational community." German Federal Constitutional Court, Judgment of Apr. 7,
1965, BVerfGE.
172. Statute of the International Court of Justice, supra note 68. As stated in Rankin,"For every wrong the common law provides an adequate remedy ... on international andcommon law principles." Christian County Court v. Rankin, 63 Ky. (2 Duv.) 502, 505-06(1866).
173. Chorzow Factory (Indemnity), 1928 P.C.I.J. (ser. A.) No. 17, at 29 (emphasis
added).
174. Universal Declaration,supra note 139, art. 8.
175. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, supranote 139, art. 2; see also
THEO VAN BOVEN, STUDY CONCERNING THE RIOHT TO RESTITUTION, COMPENSATION
AND REHABILITATION FOR VICTIMS OF GROSS VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIOHTS AND FUN-DAMENT.AL FREEDOMS: PROGRESS REPORT, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.27 (1991) (discussing
Human Rights Committee cases ordering compensation).
176. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, supra note 139, art. 9.

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

contain the right to compensation." 7 In postwar humanitarian law, 173
the Geneva Conventions of 1949 forbid states from "absolv[ing] themselves of liability" for grave breaches. 179 Protocol Additional I of the
Geneva Conventions provides for liability for all acts of members of astate's armed forces and mandates compensation for serious
breaches1S°
The right to compensation and the corresponding duty to pay
does not necessarily mean that all individual claimants should have topress claims in national courts. While national courts may be the best
fora for providing an effective remedy, they may present obstacles anda lengthy, complex judicial process.lsl Procedural barriers to recourse
177. American Convention on Human Rights, July 18, 1978, art. 10, O.A.S.T.S, No. 36;
European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,
Sept. 3, 1953, art. 5, Europ. T.S. No. 5. Regarding the right to redress, the Inter-American
Court of Human Rights states: "The State has a legal duty... to use the means at its
disposal to carry out a serious investigation of violations committed within its jurisdiction,
to identify those responsible and to impose appropriate punishment and to cnsure the victim compensation." Velasques Rodriguez Case, 19S5 Inter-Am. C.H.R. (Ser. C No. 4,
para. 174, reprintedin 28 I.L.M. 291 (1989) (emphasis added). See %,Ar4Bovr'i, supra note
175, at 13-15 (annotating OAS cases); THno vAN BoVEN, STUDY CoNcERaNINo THE RiGHr
TO RESITruTION, COMPENSATION AND RMABILITATION FOR VICTIMS OF GROS. V IOLATONS OF HtNLAN RIGHrs AND FuNDAew.NTAL FR.Ows: SECOND PROGRESS REI'ORT,

U.N. Doc. EICN.4Sub.21992/8 at 15-17 (presenting cases in European Commission and
Court of Human Rights).
178. According to Nuremberg General Council Benjamin Ferencz, the strength of therule that victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity are entitled to compensation
mandates an organized [international] program for such compensation. Benjamin Ferencz,
Compensating Victims of the Crimes of War, 12 VA. J. INr'L L. 343 (1972).
179. Geneva Convention I, supra note 147, art. 51, 6 U.S.T. at 3148; Geneva Convention II, supra note 147, art. 52, 6 U.S.T. at 3250; Geneva Convention II, supra note 147,
art. 131,6 U.S.T. at 3420; Geneva Convention IV, supranote 147, art. 148,6 U.S.T. at 3618.
180. Protocol Additional I to the Geneva Convention of 1949, Dec. 7, 1978, art. 91,
1125 U.N.T.S. 3, 45.
181. Private claimants in Germany were judged not to have standing to sue private
industrialists or their companies. See Benjamin Ferencz, West Germany. Supreme Court
Bars Claims of ForcedLaborers Against German IndustrialConcerns, 15 AM. J. Co'.p. L
561 (1967) (discussing German high court refusal to allow private claims against Krupp,
I.G. Farben, AEG, and Telefunken). Private claimants from Vietnam were barred fromlegal action for damages against Lt. Calley, Secretary of Defense Laird, and Secretary of
the Army Resor in their private capacities. Civil Action No. 1473 (M.D. Ga. 1971), cited inFerencz, supra note 155, at 348 n.20. Private claims against the United States for injuriescaused by the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dismissed on the
grounds that in the Allied Treaty Japan promised to waive claims of Japanese nationals in
its national courts. Decision of Tokyo District Court of Dec. 7, 1969 (Case No. 2,914 andCase No. 4,177), 355 HAhn 17 (1963), reprinted in S JAPANESE ANN. INr'L L 212, 243-49(1964). The Court stated that the defendant state (Japan) "caused many nationals to die,injured them, and drove them to a precarious life by the war which it opened on its own
authority and responsibility... Needless to say the defendant state should take sufficientrelief measures in this light." Id. at 250.

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[Vol. 17:497

in national courts, however, should not free governments from theduty to compensate. If the courts decline jurisdiction or if other conditions militate against judicial redress, governments must provide forcompensation through some alternative mechanism.
For these war-rape victims, an alternative mechanism may be
preferable to Japanese courts. First, compensation sought on a caseby-case basis may be unduly burdensome to a national court systemsince the volume of cases may effectively tie up the national courts.18
National court systems may have rigid requirements for evidence, andthese women, who rarely spoke Japanese and who were frequently
transported to unknown locations, may not be able to present sufficient documentation for national courts. 183 Victims may be intimidated by, or be unable to effectively use, unfamiliar legal systems.
Costs may also be prohibitive for foreign claimants, especially in thesecases where many victims are poor and when litigation costs in Japantend to be very high.' 4 Also, since the Japanese government is implicated in these cases, fear of bias in the Japanese legal system isreasonable. 185
B.

Germany's PostwarReparationScheme

Because international law provides little guidance on how compensation should be paid, a brief review of the German postwar reparation scheme for individual victims will be useful as one example of acompensation scheme. Germany has paid billions of dollars in directcompensation to its World War II victims and considers compensationa matter of national honor and a statement of its commitment to principles of international law. 85 Payments continue today, and new com182. Japanese attorneys working on these cases have also indicated that these types ofcases typically can take up to ten years to reach a final disposition.
183. In special claims procedures, the burden of proof may be more flexible than innational courts.
184. The nature of these violations requires that compensation awards be high. Becauseof attorneys fees, on a contingency or other basis, and other court costs, compensation
actually paid to the victims may be significantly reduced. This concern was raised by U.N.
Sub-Commission member Claire Palley at the Sub-Commission's 1993 session. See Statement of Claire Palley, U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discriminationand Protection of Minorities, U.N. ESCOR, 45th sess., 10th mtg., at 21, U.N. Doe. EICN.4Sub.21
SR.10 (1993).
185. See generally RicHAD B. LILLICH, INTERNATIONAL CLAINS: THEIR ADJUDICA.
TION BY NATIONAL CONINMISSIONS (1962); RICHARD B. LmLICH & GORDAN CHRISTENSON,INTERNATIONAL CLAIMS: THEIR PREPARATION AND PRESENTATION (1962).

186. German leaders considered compensation for victims "an essential moral prerequisite for Germany's readmission to the family of civilized nations." Ferencz, supra note
155, at 353.

1994lCompensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

pensation schemes address previously uncompensated victims. 18 This
compensation scheme was created primarily through legislation resulting from political negotiations, mainly between West Germany andIsrael, and not through the judicial process.
The German postwar claims process began with the Potsdam Protocol."Es Subsequently, the Allies set forth in a number of plans acompensation scheme whereby they forced Germany to pay reparations to the community of nations. However, none of these plans addressed restitution and compensation for individual victims ofGerman violations of international law during World War II. Consequently, on September 20, 1945, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, soon to be thefirst president of Israel, demanded from the Germans several forms ofremedy (restitution, indemnification, and compensation) for the Jewish people, estimating material losses alone of $8 billion. 9 However,
Allied reparation efforts still largely ignored claims for individual andcollective compensation, and only small sums were distributed. From1945 to 1949, the British, French and U.S. administrations initiatedsome legislation for restitution and compensation, 1 '9 but these fell far
short of Weizmann's demands. Then, in September 1949 the Federal
Republic of Germany (West Germany) came into existence, and on
November 11, 1949, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer publicly initiatedhis policy to restore German relations with the Jews by offering Israel
DM 10 million worth of German-made goods. 191 Although Israel did
not initially respond to Adenauer's offer, a series of negotiations between Germany and Israel ensued, some open and some secret.
187. German industries that utilized forced or slave labor have also made recent reparations. For example, in 1986 Feldmuele Nobel AG (successor to Flick Industnes) paid $2
million to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims for 1,300-1,500 survivors. Reparation

Paidfor Jewish Slave Labor,Cm. TmB., Jan. 9, 19S6, at 5. Friedrich Flick received a sevenyear sentence at the Nuremberg Tribunal. United States v. Flick, reprinted in Ur r,_
STATES GoxV mmiENT PRnrIG OFFICE, 4 TRIALS OF WAR CuIMINALs BeIoRE THE NU-.
REMBERG MNIARY T1mutAI.s UNDER CoUNcIL CONrnoL Lw No. 10 (1952). In 19]3
Daimler-Benz agreed to pay $11.7 million to survivors of some 46,00 laborers used byDaimler-Benz. Daimler-Benz To Pay $12 Million for War ForcedLabor,LA. Tr.ms, June
12, 1988, §1, at 9.
188. Berlin (Potsdam) Conference, Aug. 2, 1945, 3 Bevans 1207, reprintedin 39 A.s J.
INT'L L. 245 (Supp. 1945).
189. N. BALABKINS, WESr GERMiAN RFPARAnONS TO ISRAEL S4 (1971) (citing IsRAEL,I1NISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DocumNrs RELATiNr, TO THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN=E Gov ERmmNT OF ISRAEL AND TnEGov

ER. NTr OF THE FEDERAL REPUBmc OF

GER ANY 9-12 (1953)).

190. Id. at 85.
191. Id at 86. Although Adenauer was aware that the offer was only a symboli gesture, he was nevertheless taking the first step in placing responsibility for the Holocaust on
the German people. Id

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[Vol. 17:497

The negotiations culminated in the 1952 Luxembourg Treaty,'
which is composed of four related but separate documents: The Israelor Shilumin Agreement and three protocols. In the Israel Agreement,
West Germany agreed to pay DM 3 billion to Israel. Protocol No. 1,
between West Germany and the Claims Conference, required West
Germany to initiate legislation for individual compensation to victims.
Protocol No. 2, also between West Germany and the Claims Conference, required West Germany to pay DM 3.45 billion to Israel andDM 450 million to the Claims Conference for rehabilitation of victims
and the work of Jewish relief organizations around the world. 3 Protocol No. 3 required Israel to refund to West Germany the value of
secular property (mostly that of the Knights Templar) located in
Israel.' 94
In fulfillment of Protocol No. 1, West Germany passed the Federal Indemnification Law of 1953 (BEG), 95 which provides compensation for "persons who, by reason of race, religion, nationality, or
political conviction have suffered discriminatory or other terror action
at the hands of the Third Reich."'1 96 The BEG provided immediate
assistance to returnees, as well as compensation to individuals for anumber of injuries: loss of life; impairment of health and limb; loss or
impairment of freedom and civil liberties; damage to property, wealthand discriminatory payments; damage to vocational progress; damage
192. Luxembourg Treaty, Sept. 10, 1952, Isr.-F.R.G., 162 U.N.T.S. 205; see Div
HAAGER VERTRAGSWFRKE: ALLGEMEINE WOCHENZEITUNG DER JUDEN IN DEUTSCH.

LAND 23-36 (1952); NANA SAG, GERMANREPARATIONS: A HISToRY OF THE NEOOTIA-TIONS (1980).

193. See Luxembourg Treaty, supra note 192, 162 U.N.T.S. 205.
194. Id.
195. BEG, Federal Indemnification Law of 1953 (amended 1956), cited in G. Vernon
Leopold, A Survey of the Indemnification Law of the FederalRepublic of Germany, MicH.
ST. BAR J., Jan. 1958, at 59-60.
196. Id. Eligibility was further conditioned on residence requirements. Clients needed
to show:(a) [They were] permanently domiciled within the Federal German Republic on
December 31, 1952, or if their decedents' death had occurred prior to said date,that they maintained their last permanent domicile with the Federal Republic, or(b) That they had emigrated, fled, or been deported prior to December 31, 1952
from territories which, on December 31, 1937 formed part of the German Reich,
except that persons who resettled behind the iron curtain are for all intents andpurposes barred, or (c) That they are either displaced persons, returnees from
confinement or internment as prisoners of war, or can meet special qualifications
applicable to expellees from certain German language areas beyond December
31, 1937 borders of the former German Reich.
See Leopold, supra note 195, at 60.

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

1994]

to economic progress; and interruption of education. 97 Individuals
could apply for benefits through any German consulate up to April 1,
1958. Persecution was presumed where the claimant was part of acategorically persecuted minority or group. Proof of damages andother necessary elements could be supported by affidavits.
This compensation scheme cost an estimated five to six billion
dollars.1 9 The adjudicative phase of the program was completed by

December 31, 1962, but the payment phase did not officially expire
until 1965.199

The BEG was not the sole program for payment of reparations to
individual victims of the Third Reich. Several of the West German
Lander instituted compensation programs, some predating Protocol
No. 1 and the BEG.2 ° West Germany also paid victims residing inEurope: Between 1959 and 1964 agreements were made with eleven
European countries for compensation for these victims." ' Nor wascompensation limited to West Germany. For example, in 1988, Austria passed a law to pay one-time payments of between $20S and $416
per person supplemented by lifetime pensions for those victimized by
the Nazis when Austria was under German rule during World War
11.202

Similarly, in 1990, the East German government reversed forty

years of Communist opposition to payment of reparations and agreed
to pay $3.65 million to an Israeli foundation that helps ease survivors'
psychological and physical suffering. Under this law, the former East
Germany was to pay an additional $59,000 to a branch of the foundation to be located in East Germany. 20 3
The German compensation schemes for individual claimants havebeen modified and enlarged as new claimants have pressed for compensation. For example, in November 1992, the German government
197. Id.at 60-64.
198. 1& at 65.
199. Id.

200. See Luxembourg Treaty, supra note 192, protocol no. 1, art. 1, 162 UNTS. at 270"Insofar as legislation now in force in the Lander contains more favourable regulations
these will be maintained." Id. For discussion of these laws,see Ferencz, supra note 155, at
353 n.35.
201. Under these agreements, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Sweden received payments for victims. See BRiAN FoRBEs ET AL., SuBstssIoN OF VAR An-TATz.uAN3 oF
CANADA TO THE UNrrED NATIONS CONmUSSION ON HUNIAN Riomr,
app. G, 2 (l03).
202. Austria Adopts New Plan for Payments to Victims of Nazis, N.Y. TN.ES, Mar. 27,
1988, § 1, at 21.
203. E. Germansfor FirstTune Giving Funds to Aid Holocaust Survivors, LA. TIM ,Apr. 24, 1990, at A14.

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[Vol. 17:497

agreed to pay millions of dollars to victims who previously received
minimal reparations or none at all because they had been living in theformer East Germany and other Eastern European countries. 20 4 The
World Jewish Congress stated that the agreement could cover an estimated 50,000 people, mostly from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The German Finance Ministry said that it had agreed to
pay up to an additional $630 million by the end of the century to thesevictims. 20 5 To date, the Federal Republic of Germany
has paid over
20 6
$55 billion in reparations to Israel and victims.
V.

UNITED NATIONS ACTION

From the initial presentation of these war-rape cases at the 1992
session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (U.N. Commission), U.N. human rights bodies have devoted much attention to theissue, especially the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (U.N. Sub-Commission) 20 7 andthe U.N. Sub-Commission's Working Group on Contemporary Formsof Slavery (Working Group on Slavery). 20 s Additionally, a confidential communication for compensation was presented under a special
procedure,20 9 but it has not yet been determined if the U.N. Commission or the U.N. Sub-Commission can issue a binding compensation
order under that procedure.
204. Bonn to Pay Jewish Victims of Nazis in East, L.A. TIMES, Nov. 7, 1992, at A10.
205. Id.Those eligible for reparations are those who were imprisoned in a concentration camp for a minimum of six months, those who lived in a Nazi-administered ghetto fora minimum of 18 months, and those who lived in hiding under severe conditions for at least
18 months. As of May 1993, about 30,000 applications had been received for a lump sum
payment of about $3,200 and $320 per month for life. Nora Frenkiel, The Last Holocaust
Victim, WASH. Posr, May 18, 1993, at El.
206. Id.
207. The Sub-Commission, an independent expert body now composed of 26 members,
was originally established by the U.N. Commission at its first session in 1947 to make recommendations to the U.N. Commission in the field of discrimination and minorities and to"perform any other functions that may be entrusted to it by the Economic and Social
Council or by the Commission on Human Rights." 1946-47 U.N.Y.B. 528, U.N. Sales No.
147.1.18.
208. The U.N. Economic and Social Council approved the proposal that the Sub-Commission establish a five-person working group to "review developments in the field of theslave trade and the slavery-like practices of apartheid and colonialism and the traffic of
persons and the exploitation of the prostitution of others as defined in [international instruments]." REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF SLAVERY,
U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/34, at 1 (1992).
209. See U.N. CONMM'N ON HuMAN RIOS; STATEMENT OF VAR AMPUTATIONS OF

CANADA,U.N. Doe. E/CN.4/SR.32 (1993).

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

In spite of uncertainties regarding compensation under the special procedure, the United Nations has contributed to the resolutionof these violations in public procedures by providing these victims
with an opportunity to present their cases and elicit responses fromgovernments, experts and nongovernmental organizations. For example, shortly after the 1992 session of the U.N. Commission, these cases
were presented to the 1992 session of the Working Group on Slavery
which in turn:
request[ed] the Secretary-General to submit to the Special Rapporteur on the right to restitution, compensation and rehabilitation ... information received by the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery regarding the situation of women forced toengage in prostitution during wartime.210
At the 1992 U.N. Sub-Commission session, public testimony continued with several governments joining nongovernmental organizations to speak on these issues. 211 Unfortunately, Japan failed toaddress compensation. Testimony was again presented during the debates of the U.N. Commission at its 1993 session21 and at the 1993
session of the Working Group on Slavery. 1 3 The response at the 1993
session of the Working Group on Slavery was more concrete, especially because the U.N. Sub-Commission's rapporteur on restitution,compensation, and rehabilitation expressed interest in preparing a
special study on wartime sexual exploitation 14 The Working Group210.

REPORT OF THE WORKINO GROUP ON CoNmIPORARY FORM S OF SLAVERY, U.N.

Doe. EICN.4Sub.2/34, at 28 (1992).
211. See, eg., SuB-CoMM'N ON PREV.ETNnON OF DtSCRIMINATION ; SrATE.-T OFlED,
U.N. Doe. EFCN.4/Sub.2/SR7, at 7 (1992); SuB-Co.mM'N oNq PREVEnON or DI1cP-.INATION; STATE MENT OF DEocRATic PEOPLE'S REPUBuc or KOREA, U.N. Doe. E'CNaf
Sub.21SR.7, at 12 (1992); SuB-CoMM'N ON PREVENTION OF DIscRINATIO-.; STATEM.iENT
OF THEO VAN BovEN, SuB-ComNzssioN RAPFORTEUR ON COMIFENSr.TIO. , U.N. Doz. F
CN.4/Sub.2/SR.26, at 15-19 (1992); SuB-ComM'N ON PREVENION4 OF DiRcP-I1'!1NATO!;;STATENMENT OF REPUBLIC OF KOREA, U.N. Doe. EFCN.4/SR.7, at 12 (1992) ("[Hlis government had urged the government of Japan to undertake a thorough investigation. .. and to
adopt the proper remedial measures ... for the victims whose suffering remained unmitigated, almost 50 year[s] since the end of World War IL").
212. See, e-g., U.N. COMM'N ON Hu~iAN Rlirrs; STATFENT OF KArEN PARER, U.N.
Doe. EICN.4/SR.3S (1993).
213. See REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP ON CONrENioRARY Fo'.iS OF SLAVERY,
U.N. Doe. E!CN.4Sub.230, at 16, 17, 19, 27, 28 (1993) [hereinafter 1993 REoIrT OF
WORKING GROUP ON SLAVERY] (summarizing statements by International Fellowship ofReconciliation, Liberation, International Commission of Jurists, and Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women). Japan, the Democratic People's Republic ofKorea, and the Republic of Korea also spoke during the session. Id. at 28-30.
214. U.N. Doe. EICN.4/Sub.2AC.219 (1993).

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

on Slavery noted the rapporteur's interest 15 andpresented the ques2 16
tion to the U.N. Sub-Commission as a whole.
At its 1993 session, the U.N. Sub-Commission nominated a rapporteur to report on war-rape victims, including "systematic rape, sex2 17
ual slavery and slave-like practices in particular during wartime.)
Meanwhile, the U.N. Commission or the U.N. Sub-Commission could
adopt resolutions condemning Japan and requesting states to implement sanctions until reasonable compensation is made, especially if
Japan fails to proceed with some form of compensation scheme.
To date, efforts to obtain just compensation for war-rape victims
have centered on the U.N. human rights bodies, but U.N. action insuch cases need not be limited to these bodies. For example, the Secretary-General, 218 the General Assembly,2 19 the Security Council,220
or the Economic and Social Council221 could act singly or in concert
with the U.N. Commission, Sub-Commission, or the Sub-Commission's Working Group on Slavery. These bodies could also request
assistance from the International Court of Justice or could help arrange for international arbitration. Any of them can also assist Japanin setting up a compensation claims process and provide guidance onreasonable monetary award levels that fully address the requests andneeds of the victims.
215.

1993 REPORT OF WORKING GROUP ON S.AvERY, supra note 213, at 40.

216. Id. The Working Group also encouraged the rapporteur to take account of information from the session in his final report under his 1989 mandate to be presented to the
Sub-Commission at its 1993 session. Id.
217. The U.N. Sub-Commission named member Linda Chavez (United States) as rapporteur rather than Theo von Boven, who was the special rapporteur on compensation,
due to his intervening appointment to another U.N. position.
218. The Secretary-General has authority to present issues threatening international
peace and security to the Security Council. U.N. CHARTER art. 99; see DAVID COYLE, Tim
UNITED NATIONS AND How rr WORKS 148 (1955); see generally B.G. RAMCHARAN, HU.
MANITARIAN GOOD OFFICES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE
UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL IN THE FIELD OF HUMAN IomIs (1983).

219. See U.N. CHARTER arts. 10-17. Article 13 gives the General Assembly authority to
study and recommend on issues of human rights. Article 15 gives the General Assembly
authority to "receive and consider reports from other organs of the United Nations,"
220. The Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international
peace and security. U.N. CHARTER art. 24(1). It can carry out any activity or establish
subsidiary bodies at will. Id. arts. 29-30.
221. The Economic and Social Council has authority to "make recommendations forthe purpose of promoting respect for and observance of, human rights and fundamental
freedoms." U.N. CHARTER art. 62(2). It also has authority over the U.N. Commission and
its Sub-Commission. Id. art. 68.

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

VI. JAPAN'S RESPONSES
After the discovery of relevant documents by Professor Yoshimi,
and after being forced to recant its initial denial of any involvement in
the jugun ianfu scheme,' Japan began to research these events andreleased some findings of its inquiries in July 1992. Japan still denied
that the program was other than "voluntary," although it was forced
to concede some episodes involving Japanese soldiers.2m However, in
its more comprehensive study, released on August 4,1993, the government acknowledged that its agents were responsible for "coaxing and4
intimidating these women to be recruited against their own will.""The Japanese government also indicates that it will continue to research the events.
The Japanese government has now made a number of publicapologies to the war-rape victims, some during diplomatic dealings
with specific countries and others during the U.N. human rights sessions in Geneva. Former Prime Ministers Koshiki Kaifu and Kiichi
Miyazawa formally apologized to South and North Korea during diplomatic visits to these countries.225 Recently, Prime Minister Morihiro
Hosokawa issued another apology during talks with Korean President
Kim Young-Sam. 2 6 Then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa was also
forced to apologize to Philippine President Fidel Ramos during thelatter's state visit to Japan in March 1993.
Apologies have also been presented to the international community as a whole. For example, at the August 1992 session of the U.N.
Sub-Commission, the Japanese government stated, "The governmentof Japan has expressed its sincere apology and remorse to all those,222. When the three Korean women filed their lawsuit in December 1991, Japans Chief
Cabinet Minister, Koichi Kato, said the government had no responsibility for brotheI3.
David E. Sanger, History Scholar in Japan Exposes a Brutal Chapter,N.Y. Tjr!iF5. Jan. 27,

1992, at A4. However, only one month later and just prior to a state visit to South Korea,
then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazava was forced to concede the government's involvement
due to Professor Yoshimi's discovery of the documents. Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Japan Battlesits
Memories, N.Y. Tisms, Mar. 11, 1992, at A23.
223. A Year Later, Gov't Still Mulling Plans to Redress 'Comfort Women'.

,lAnaci

DAmy Nnws, Dec. 8, 1992, at C14.
224. JAPAN, FACrS ON THE ISSUE OF VARTIME "COMIFORTVoVF'N" (1993) (summary

in English distributed by Japanese delegation to U.N. Sub-Commission 1993 sesion, on filewith author).
225. Reference to this apology was made by Japan at the 1992 session of the U.N.
Working Group on Slavery. See REPORT OF THE WORrIG GRoUP ON Co'.vrNrOPAry
Fopi.s OF SLAvEny at 17, U.N. Doc. EICNASub.2134 (1992).
226. See S. Koreans Say JapaneseApology Falls Short, REUTER LIBRAR'e REFOP.rT, Nov.
7, 1993, availablein LEXIS, Nexis Library, Lbyrpt File.

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[Vol. 17:497

irrespective of nationality or origin, who underwent indescribablepains and sufferings as so-called 'comfort women."' 22 7 On August 4,
1993, following the government's statement that the sex slaves were
violently coerced,228 the government issued an official apology subsequently presented at the 1993 session of the U.N. Sub-Commission:
Through... intensive and extensive investigation, it has been madeabundantly clear that many women's honor and dignity were severely injured, and that this was done by an act with the involvement of the military authorities of the day.
The government of Japan is unequivocally extending its sincere
apologies and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin,
who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.

Japan is squarely facing the historical facts, instead of evadingthem. She is taking [them] to heart as lessons of history. She isfirmly determined never to repeat the same mistake by forever engraving such
issues in her memories through the study and teachingof history.229
Despite these admissions and apologies, when pressed for monetary compensation, Japan asserts it settled all claims arising fromWorld War II in its treaties with the Allied Powers and the Republicof Korea. 230 In addition, one Japanese representative has stated thatthese acts took place too long ago, that wars are always bad, and thatwith so many victims, the process of compensation would be endless
227. SUB-COMM'N ON PREVENTION OF DIsCRIMINATION; STATEMENT OF JAPAN (RiOHT
OF REPLY), U.N. Doc. EICN.41Sub.2/SR.31, at 17 (1992). This apology occurred at a time
when Japan did not yet acknowledge either the full participation of the Japanese government or the violent coercion of the sex slaves. Japan at that point conceded a governmentrole, but considered the sex slaves "voluntary." Interviews with Keiichi Aizawa and Ipsuko Makai, Japanese delegates to the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland (Aug. 22,
1992).
228. James Sterngold, Japan Admits Army Forced Women Into War Brothels, N.Y.

TIMEs, Aug. 5, 1993, at A2.
229. SuB-COMM'N ON PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION; STATEMENT OF JAPAN(RGiTrr OF REPLY), U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/SR.23 (1993). Regarding this apology, thegovernment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea stated: "Such an 'apology' ...
'is too little too late' and far from bringing to light the true facts about the issue of the'comfort women for the army.'... After all, the Japanese government has not put forward
a final solution to the issue of 'comfort women for the army' including a convincing apology acceptable to all, a full investigation and its publication and due compensation." SUB-

COMM'N ON PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION; STATEMENT OF THE: DEMOCRATIC PEo.
PLE'S REPUBLIC OF KOREA, U.N. Doec. E/CN.4/Sub.2/SR.10 (1993).

230. Id.

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

and the amounts necessary to pay all the victims would be too highP 1
None of these explanations are compelling.
A.

Allied and Korean Treaties With JapanThe Democratic People's Republic of Korea, China, the Philippines and Taiwan are not parties to either treaty, so claimants fromthese and other countries not a party to the treaties are unaffected byany treaty-based argument for denying compensation. A number ofclaimants who reside in Japan are similarly unaffected by the treatiesI 32 Regarding the treaties themselves, the Allied Treaty- 3 and the
Korean Treaty' both address reparations. The Allied Treaty states"[ilt is recognized that Japan should pay reparations to the AlliedPowers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war,' 2 s
and it sets out specific provisions for the return of property, rights,
and interests by JapanP3 6 In the section presumably relied on by Japan to show settlement of all claims, the treaty states:
Except as otherwise provided in the present Treaty, the Allied Powers waive all reparation claims of the Allied Powers, other claims of
the Allied Powers and their nationals arising out of any actions

taken by Japan and its nationals in the course of the prosecution of
the war, and 7claims of the Allied Powers for direct military cost ofoccupation3

The Korean Treaty resolves claims "concerning property of thetwo countries and their nationals and claims between the two countries and their nation,"238 and specifies products and services of the231. Interview with Masataka Okano, Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affair, Aian Affairs Bureau, in Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 8, 1992). Japan has also claimed that prcnitutton %a
legal in Japan until 1957 and so the wartime program did not violate its own laws. Sce, ag.,
Shinji Ito, Wartime Brothels Called "Natural," JAPAN TIMES, Aug. 5, 1992, at 3. Presumably Japan will no longer present this argument, as the government has clearly concedcd
that the jugun iantfu scheme was involuntary and condemned in Japanese law at that time.
Then Prime Minister Kiichi Mivazawa also claimed that compensation should b2 deeid-id
by the courts. Kim Tells Japanto Apologize For and Fully Reveal War Abuse, AGK:Ecz Fp.
P.EssE, Sept. 2, 1993, available in LEXIS, World Library, AFP File.
232. Some war-rape victims belong to the Korean minority in Japan who, although danied full citizenship rights, cannot claim citizenship from either North or South Korea.
233. Allied Treaty, supra note 16, 136 U.N.T.S. 45.
234. Korean Treaty, supra note 17, 583 U.N.T.S. 173.
235. Allied Treaty, supra note 16, art. 14(a), 136 U.N.T.S. at SO.
236. Id. at 62.
237. Id. art. 14(V)(b), 136 U.N.T.S. at 64.
238. Korean Treaty, supra note 17, pmbl., 583 U.N.T.S. at 258.

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[Vol. 17:497

Japanese people and loans to be given to the Republic of Korea. 3 9
The Korean Treaty provides:
The Contracting Parties confirm that [the] problem concerning
property, rights and interests of the two Contracting Parties andtheir nationals (including juridical persons) and concerning claims
between the Contracting Parties and their nationals, including those
provided for in Article IV, paragraph (a) of the Treaty of Peace withJapan signed at the city of San
Francisco on September 8, 1951, is
2 40
settled completely and finally.

Japan presumably relies on this provision to show settlement of all
claims.
241
Neither treaty provides for or mentions war-rape victims.
Neither treaty addresses private claims but only claims in which states
are the parties. According to these treaties, the parties have agreed
not to take up additional state claims against the other parties. In thecases raised by the war-rape victims, no party to the treaty has
brought a legal action on its behalf-these victims seek private remedies on their own.
Even if language in the treaties could be found that purported toextinguish private claims, the parties to these treaties had no legal authority to do so. First of all, the underlying claims arise from violations of jus cogens norms and erga omnes obligations which require an
appropriate remedy-compensation. The right to seek that remedy isitself a jus cogens right. If any provision of either the Allied Treaty or
the Korean Treaty effectively nullifies these jus cogens rights or allows
violations of jus cogens to go uncompensated, then that provision
would be void. 242 As Oppenheim stated in his 1905 treatise:
It is a unanimously recognized customary rule of International Law
that obligations which are at variance with universally recognizedprinciples of International Law cannot be the object of a treaty. If,
for instance a State entered into a convention with another Statenot to interfere in case the latter should appropriate a certain partof the Open Sea, or should command its vessels to commit piraticalacts on the Open Sea, such treaty would be null and void, because it
is a principle of International Law that no part of the Open Sea may
239. Id. art. 1, 583 U.N.T.S. at 258.
240. Id. art. II(1), 583 U.N.T.S. at 260.

241. According to Professor Yoshimi, the issue of war-rape victims was not even discussed in any reparation or treaty negotiations, including those leading to the Korean
Treaty. Yoshimi, supra note 5, at 87.
242. S.S. Wimbledon (Kiel Canal), 1923 P.C.IJ. (ser. A) No. 15, at 43, 47 (Aug. 17)(Schucking, J. dissenting).

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

be appropriated, and that it is the duty of every State to interdict toits vessels the commission of piracy on the High Seas. 43
Other leading scholars of the prewar period concur with Oppenheim's
finding that recognition of this rule is unanimous. For example, Hall
states: "A treaty becomes [void] ...[b]y incompatibility with the gen-eral obligations of states, when a change has taken place in undisputed
law or in views universally held with respect to morals."' " This principle is also incorporated into the postwar codification of treaty lawv. 45
Accordingly, Japan may not rely on its treaties with the allied powers
or the Republic of Korea to circumvent its liability or its duty to remedy individual claimants for acts governed by jus cogens.
This result is the only possible one given the nature of violationsof jus cogens; the result of governments entering into treaties purporting to terminate private claims of victims to avoid liability for war
crimes and crimes against humanity would be a legal catastrophe. Because of the gravity of these violations, if all the other signatories tothese treaties failed to seek adequate remedy for their own citizens,
neither they nor Japan could prevent individuals and groups of victims
from obtaining remedies on their own.
B. Time Bar
Time should not be a bar to recovery for the war-rape victims.
The policy reasons supporting a time bar such as a statute of limitations or laches are absent. The victims seeking remedy are still alive.
The evidence is not stale, but compelling, and Japan has admitted tothe existence of the overall scheme. The evidence has only come forth
243. LASSA OPPENHEIM, INTERNATIONAL LAW.A TREAnxSE 528 (1905).
244. Wrn.IAss E. HALL, 1 A T.EAmnsE IN INrERNAmoNAL L*W 319 (7th ed. 1917);
accord Alfred von Verdross, Forbidden Treaties in InternationalLaw, 31 Am. J. INT'L L.
571 (1937); see also Oscar Chinn Case (BeIg. v. U.K.), 1934 P.C.IJ. (ser. A/B) No.63, at
149-50 (Dec. 12) (separate opinion by Judge Schucking) (Court not applying treaty contrary to jus cogens). In United States v. Krupp, the Nuremberg Tribunal claimed any agreement between Germany and the Vichy government to employ prisoners of war in war
operations was "void under the law of nations ... it was manifestly contra bones mores."
United States v. Krupp, Int'l Military Trib. (July 31, 1948), reprintcd in 9 U.S. GovxuP r;.
sMN-r PRmTING OFFIcE, TPiI
TRmUNA.S (1952).

s OF WAR C.nmuAm

s BEFoRE THE NUREMBERO MGjLrrARY

245. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Jan. 27,19S0, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331. Article 53 sets out the rule that treaties are void if they conflict withjus cogens norms. Article
64 provides: "If a new peremptory norm of general international law emerges, any existingtreaty which is in conflict with that norm becomes void and terminates." Id art. 64, 1155
U.N.T.S. at 347. Although the Vienna Convention only applies to subsequent treaties, id.
art. 4, 1155 U.N.T.S. at 334, the jus cogens provisions must be considered retroactive because under no circumstances may governments enforce acts violatingius cogens.

Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev.

[V/ol. 17:497

recently, and the victims have not unduly delayed in seeking compensation. Japan itself has been in custody of most of the documentary
evidence. It would be unfair to allow Japan to claim a time bar whenit controlled much of the evidence. Moreover, the violations the warrape victims suffered are serious, and redress should not be limited
because of time.246
A strong reason for precluding a time bar is that soon after thewar, Japan was not in a financial position to provide compensation.
While other forms of compensation may be possible, adequate monetary compensation may not be possible immediately after a war of thismagnitude. In these circumstances, a recovery period is needed
before a state may have sufficient resources to settle claims.247 Whenthe state is in a financial position to provide meaningful financial compensation, the state should pay. However, even in these circumstances emergency funds should be provided the victims before fullcompensation is awarded.
C. Number of Victims and Claims
No government can excuse jus cogens violations and their monetary consequences by claiming difficulties, especially financial ones,arising from too many victims. It is unreasonable for Japan to claimthat because it injured too many victims it cannot compensate anyone.
The German compensation scheme for Holocaust survivors exemplifies an attempt to provide remedy for multitudes of people injured bya particular event. No less can be expected of the Japanese government. Although wars cause many deaths, international law distinguishes casualties resulting from legitimate military activities andthose arising from senseless brutality. The atrocities the Japanese government inflicted on the war-rape victims fall under the latter
category.
Japan should undertake immediate action to redress all serious
wrongs committed in the course of Japan's military operations in the246. See, e.g., Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War
Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, supra note 151, 754 U.N.T.S. 73.
247. The Allied Treaty recognizes that Japan had insufficient resources to pay reparations and sets out a scheme for long-term payment. Allied Treaty, supra note 16, art. 14,
136 U.N.T.S. at 50. Ferencz notes that despite the physical and economic ruin of Germany
after World War II, the payment of billions of dollars in compensation to Germany's war
victims "was accompanied without any noticeable hardship to the average German citizen.
The wise German leaders... considered the restitution to Nazi victims to be an essential

moral prerequisite for Germany's readmission to the family of civilized nations." Ferencz,
supra note 155, at 353.

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Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

World War II period. While individual and group judicial actions undertaken in Japanese courts are needed, many claimants will be unable to avail themselves of such judicial action. The government ofJapan should institute a comprehensive compensation plan such as theone provided in this Article. 248
VII.

INTERNATIONAL ACTION

Because of the principle of erga omnes, other governments
should refrain from any changes in the Security Council compositionor any other changes in the Charter or operations of the United Nations involving Japan until Japan has fully redressed these violations in
all aspects. Governments acting alone and in concert should urge Japan to redress fully all violations. While governments representing
the nationalities of the victims should ideally take the lead in any actions, any and all governments should respond. Governments whose
citizens are claimants should assist claimants, their associations, andtheir representatives. If Japan fails to establish a compensation plan
in a timely fashion, governments should consider freezing Japanese
assets and making them available to claimants who undertake legal
action in the respective states, in the United Nations, and in any bodyauthorized by the United Nations to hear the claims.
Whatever steps are taken to secure adequate compensation forJapan's war-rape victims, it is important to keep in mind the serious
nature of these violations. There is no return to normal relations,either domestically or internationally, until victims are compensatedto their satisfaction. As the U.N. General Assembly has stated:[A] thorough investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the arrest, extradition and punishment of persons
guilty of such crimes-wherever they may have been committedand the establishment of criteria for compensation to the victims ofsuch crimes, are important elements in the prevention of similar
crimes now and in the future, and in the protection of human rights
and fundamental freedoms, the strengthening of confidence and de248. A number of Japanese legislators have pressed for some form of comp2nstion
through legislation. Representative Sumiko Shimizu stated that she would "devote herself
to adopting a resolution to the comfort women issue, including concrete measures for compensation." Japan Asked to Compensate Asians, JAPN TuNmS, Aug. 14, 1993. On Aught
30, 1993, a group of Japanese women members of the Diet announced efforts to compensate these victims, claiming urgency because of the advanced age of most of the survivorm.
JapaneseWMomen MPs Urge Compensationfor "Comfort Women," XINHLYA (NEw CHUIA)
NNvs AGENCY, Aug. 30, 1993, available in LEXIS, Asiapc Library, Xinhua File.

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[V/ol. 17:497

velopment of co-operation between peoples and the safeguarding ofinternational peace and security. 249

VIII. CONCLUSION
Japan has a legal and moral duty to come to terms with its wartime atrocities by redressing the wrongs of its jugun ianfu scheme.
The war-rape victims forced into the jugun ianfu scheme sufferedfrom rape, slavery, and other violations of then-existing customarylaws recognized as norms of jus cogens and erga omnes obligations.
International law mandates that these victims receive adequate redress consisting of at least a full disclosure of facts, a sincere andmeaningful apology, social rehabilitation, and monetary compensation. Treaties, time, and impracticality are not persuasive defenses
against providing these war-rape victims with monetary compensation. The international community and states individually have an interest in assuring complete redress for these victims, including
monetary compensation. Finally, it is in Japan's interest legally, morally, and politically to resolve this issue to help both former war-rape
victims and veterans close a painful period of their past-as one warrape victim said, "So I can die in peace." 0249. G.A. Res. 2712, 25 U.N. GAOR, Supp. 28, at 79, U.N. Doc. A/8233 (1970). Thisauthor believes that one factor in the ongoing violations in the former Yugoslavia, especially organized rape of Bosnian women by Serbian soldiers, is the failure to date of Japanand the international community to address adequately these types of violations by Japan
during World War II.
250. Wan Ai-Hua, Statement at International Public Hearing Concerning Post-War
Compensation in Tokyo, Japan (Dec. 9, 1992).

1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

ANNEX:PROPOSAL FOR REPARATION AND
COMPENSATION FOR WORLD WAR II WARRAPE VICTIMS
I. BASIC CONCEPTS
A. There should be full and complete compensation for violations,
including at least three types of remedy.
1. Financial compensation.
Actual victims of grave violations should receive full and adequate financial compensation. Financial compensation should beawarded through an impartial claims tribunal.
2. Full disclosure of all facts.
The victims, their families, the Japanese people, and the people of
the world are entitled to know all the facts obtainable from due diligence on the part of the Japanese government and close collaborationand cooperation with national and international researchers. The government of Japan should seek to facilitate all inquiry into facts andshould make available each and every document relevant to the issue.
The government should also request other governments having accessto or custody of relevant documents to produce them in a timely fashion to researchers and the Japanese government.
3. Acknowledgement and apology.
The government of Japan should make meaningful, sincere, andtimely acknowledgement of the facts and make such public and personal apologies to victims as dictated by the gravity of the violations
and the wishes of the victims.
B. Compensation should be carried out with dignity and respect for
the victims, Japan, and the principles of international law.
1. The dignity of the victims.
All processes to compensate victims should respect victim's pastsufferings and should avoid present humiliation. Victims should nothave to recount publicly or privately their ordeals except to the degreenecessary to validate their claims. Victims should not be made tocompete with each other regarding the level of suffering. It is to be
assumed that respect for victims includes a good faith effort to honor
all reasonably credible claims.
2. The dignity of Japan.
Compensation plans should be carried out with honor and dignity
for the government of Japan and the Japanese people.
3. The dignity of international law.

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All activities undertaken to compensate past victims should reflect respect for and compliance with the principles of internationallaw.
C. All victims should be compensated.
All victims, living or dead, should receive compensation in an appropriate form and amount. The government of Japan should make aserious effort to locate potential claimants. The government of Japan
should support efforts of nongovernmental organizations, bar associations, and other citizens groups to locate living victims. Similar efforts
should be made to identify victims who have died.
D. All procedures, including the claims tribunal, should seek toavoid diplomatic entanglements.
The government of Japan should make all compensation plans forindividual claimants a private matter between it and the claimants. To
that end, the government of Japan will not invoke treaties or other
diplomatic agreements in any way so as to deny liability or to create
diplomatic problems between it and the governments of claimants.
Contact between the government of Japan and other governments should be limited, to the degree possible, to requests for assistance in compiling the facts and for permission to set up compensation
programs for claimants outside of Japan.
The government of Japan should seek the good offices of the
U.N. Secretary-General or the assistance of U.N. bodies if needed toresolve diplomatic difficulties arising out of Japan's compensation
schemes.
E. There should be provision for personal donations for victims.
The total compensation arrangement should include some mechanism for private persons and corporations in Japan to make donations for the war victims. This provision is necessary because many
actual perpetrators and their families need to atone for these acts andhave had no way to do so.
F. Monetary compensation should be fair to all.
1. Monetary compensation amounts.
Monetary compensation should reflect the level of gravity of theviolations, the value of human life, the value of fifty years of profoundsuffering, and the impossibility of a normal life for the victims. The
amounts should be neither trivial nor token, but should by themselves
reflect an understanding of the gravity of the violations and the sin-

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Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

cere remorse of the Japanese government. The amount should "hurt"
the government and the people of Japan.
2. Established amounts for claims.
To better promote and protect the dignity of claimants, the government of Japan should agree to set amounts per claim prior to any
claims procedure.
3. Equal payment for equal violations.
The compensation plans should, whenever possible, pay the sameamount to actual victims for violations constituting war crimes orcrimes against humanity regardless of the type of victim. For violations not considered war crimes or crimes against humanity but which
are nonetheless serious violations, compensation can be on an established sliding scale, depending on the individual case.
Compensation amounts to relatives of non-surviving victims
should be set prior to the establishment of the claims tribunals.
4. Arbitration to establish monetary claim amounts.
If there is disagreement between the government of Japan andthe victims or representatives of victims regarding amounts for compensation, the government of Japan should agree to a binding arbitration process to establish suitable amounts. The U.N. SecretaryGeneral could be asked to appoint the arbitration body. The arbitration body could also be established under the auspices of a relevant
body such as the International Court of Justice, the U.N. Commission
on Human Rights, its Sub-Commission, or the Working Group on
Contemporary Forms of Slavery.
5. Style of payments.
Payments may be made as a lump sum award or in periodic (i.e.,monthly or annual) payments, depending on wishes of claimants andrecommendations of, inter alia, any arbitration process or the claims
tribunal.
H. Claimants.
To the degree possible, monetary compensation should be paid tosurviving victims. Monetary compensation to relatives of non-surviving victims should be limited to spouses, parents, or children (i.e., direct lineage). In exceptional circumstances, monetary compensation
may be awarded to other family members.
Non-monetary compensation should be directed at all victims andfamily members as well as to the international community as a whole.

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II. THE CLAIMS TRIBUNAL
A. Mandate.
The claims tribunal should verify claimants. The claims tribunal
should also determine the gravity of the violations against each claimant and award the predetermined amount accordingly. The claims tribunal should be granted authority to make exception awards, either in
addition to or instead of the predetermined awards, in certain circumstances. The claims tribunal should also be granted authority to recommend lump sum or periodic payments, depending on theirevaluation of the individual circumstances.
The claims tribunal should notify the government of Japan on aperiodic basis of the approximate number of claimants under review
and the estimated financial compensation.
B.

Composition.
The claims tribunal should be composed of individuals acting intheir individual capacity. The Tribunal may be composed of a preexisting international or national forum.
The members should be chosen for their expertise (judicial or
legal experience) and impartiality.
Members could be Japanese or non-Japanese as long as the criteria of experience and impartiality are met.
If the tribunal is to be composed of only Japanese, appointment
could come from several branches of government as well as from theprivate sector. For example, an all-Japanese panel of five could becomposed of persons appointed by (one each):(1) House of Representatives;(2) Senate;(3) Executive;(4) Supreme Court;(5) Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
An expanded tribunal could include appointments made by otherappropriate groups.
The nominators should seek proposals from as wide a range ofsources as possible, including historians, law professors, citizens
groups (including victims groups and victims themselves), or humanrights attorneys.
If the tribunal is to be composed of non-Japanese, the appointments could be made by the bodies indicated above or could be madeby the U.N. Secretary-General, the International Court of Justice, the1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

U.N. Commission of Human Rights, the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery of the U.N. Sub-Commission on Preventionof Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, or other relevant bodies. The tribunal could also be made up of an existing body, such as
the International Court of Justice, a panel of that Court, or the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery.
C. Procedure of the Claims Tribunal.
The Tribunal should formulate its own procedures, keeping in
mind the age and situation of the surviving victims. The Tribunal
should be granted authority to establish claims centers in countries
known to have victims.
D. Funds for the Claims Tribunal.
The Japanese government should provide all funds for the Tribunal. The appropriation should be flexible enough to allow for mechanisms to hear claims in other countries, if desired by the Tribunal. The
Japanese government will provide provisional funds to enable the Tribunal to begin its work. The Tribunal will present an operating
budget for one year (renewable as needed) within one month of its
seating.
The government of Japan may request the assistance of theUnited Nations, through the Secretary-General, to oversee thebudget, whether the Tribunal is Japanese or non-Japanese. Funds forthis assistance will also be provided by Japan.
In addition to or instead of U.N. assistance with the budget, theDiet of Japan should establish a special committee to oversee thebudget of the Tribunal and to make the necessary fiscal appropriations
based on the information provided by the Tribunal in its periodic reports to Japan.

m. CLASSIFICATION OF VIOLATIONS
A. Survivors.
War-rape victims should be considered per se victims of war
crimes and crimes against humanity in conformity with then-existingand present international standards.
B. Family of deceased victims.
The spouses, parents, or children of deceased victims of war
crimes or crimes against humanity should receive a family
compensation.

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IV. PROPOSED MECHANISM FOR PERSONAL DONATIONSTO THE FUND FOR VICTIMS OF JAPAN IN WORLD WAR II
A. The Fund should be a Japanese private, not-for-profit fund.
B. The Fund should be governed by a board composed of victims,
victims-rights advocates, historians and researchers familiar with theissues, members of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, members of the Diet, and a representative of the Prime Minister. The nongovernmental members of the Fund should be in the majority. The
board should appoint an executive director and a fiscal manager. The
executive director should appoint other staff as needed.
C. The Fund should have a multiple mandate:
1. Research and study.
In fulfilling this aspect of its mandate, the Fund will assist andsupport recognized scholars in the field and will sponsor educational
missions as needed to obtain as complete a record as possible of all
facts. The Fund may enter into cooperative relationships with educational institutions.
2. Emergency monies for victims, pending settlement of individual claims.
In fulfilling this aspect of its mandate, the Fund will not provide
substitute monies to those who will be provided for by Japan as a result of Japan's own compensation scheme, but will provide financial
assistance to victims and victims rights groups based on individual andurgent need of persons reasonably appearing to meet compensation
criteria as well as to organizations working with victims.
3. Support for the claims process, including assisting victims fileclaims and prove their cases.
In fulfilling this aspect of its mandate, the Fund will contract withlawyers with expertise in the area, as well as other lawyers and organizations, to provide direct aid to victims for the claims process.
4. Service in an advisory capacity to the Claims Tribunal.
In fulfilling this aspect of its mandate, the Fund will provide theClaims Tribunal with information as requested, provide expert witnesses and testimony as requested, and carry out to the best of its
abilities any requests for assistance from the Tribunal.
5. Service in an advisory capacity to any arbitration body.
In fulfilling this aspect of its mandate, the Fund will provide anarbitration body with any information and recommendations re-1994]

Compensation for Japan's War-Rape Victims

549

quested regarding amounts that should be offered to individual claimants or to claimant groups.
6. Service in an advisory capacity to the Japan's Diet and Prime
Minister.
In fulfilling this aspect of its mandate, the Fund will consult regularly with any Diet committee set up in this regard, or with any officeunder the Prime Minister.
D. The Fund should seek donations from the general public for its
work. The government of Japan should make an initial $20,000,000
donation to establish the Fund and should continue to support theFund in a substantial fashion for the life of the Fund. The governmentof Japan should itself make an appeal to the Japanese public, including
corporations, for donations. The government of Japan should create
mechanisms for tax deductions for persons and corporations making
donations to this Fund.