Colonial Compensation and the Judicial Process: South Korea–Japan Disputes Revisited

Recent disputes between the Republic of Korea and Japan over colonial compensation have dealt a severe blow to their bilateral relations. In 2018, the Supreme Court of Korea ordered two Japanese corporations to pay damages to Korean laborers who had been forced to work at their factories under Japanese rule. The judgments, which ran directly counter to the earlier rulings of the Japanese Supreme Court for the same parties, reflected longstanding disagreement over the legality of Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910 and differences of interpretation concerning the 1965 treaties that restored diplomatic relations. Examination of judicial decisions in South Korea over the years indicates that the forced-laborer compensation issue had consistently been viewed as an internal problem, until it became an issue in domestic and judicial politics. In early 2023, the South Korean government announced that it would no longer demand that Japanese companies compensate Korean plaintiffs, who would instead be paid from a government fund. The forced laborer litigation and its aftermath have revealed the limits of the judicial process in resolving historical problems surrounding South Korea–Japan relations in ways that may be relevant to efforts around the globe to redress past injustices through adjudication.