Sisyphus in a Coal Mine: Responses to Slave Labor in Japan and the United States
29 Pages Posted: 24 Aug 2010
Date Written: March 4, 2006
Abstract
During World War II, the Japanese state and corporate sector committed various war crimes against the people of China. Beginning in the 1990s, Chinese plaintiffs have filed numerous lawsuits seeking compensation for these acts. This paper analyzes one stream of cases – brought by slave laborers – and various verdicts that Japanese have handed down. Given the mixed results that the courts have provided, the paper ends by proposing a comprehensive solution, modeled loosely on US holocaust litigation, to compensate the remaining victims of Japanese war crimes.
Keywords: human rights, civil litigation, war crimes, slave labor, China, Japan
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