ABSTRACT
The Japan–Republic of Korea Claims Agreement of June 22, 1965, which came into effect with the Japan–ROK Basic Relations Treaty, had two distinctive features. First, the Japanese Foreign Ministry understood South Korean property and other claims against Japan to be related to a “so-called postwar settlement necessitated by the separation [from Japan] and independence of the Republic of Korea.” In the Foreign Ministry’s view, the notion of a postwar settlement assumed that Japan’s 35-year rule over colonial Korea had been legal under international law. A second feature of the 1965 agreement concerned the handling of South Korean claims against Japan. The Japanese Foreign Ministry had assumed that both countries would relinquish their respective diplomatic rights to espouse and protect the interests of their nationals. The Japanese government concluded that by waiving the prerogative of diplomatic protection, both countries would be free to dispose of the various claims of the other party and its citizens. This left the right of individuals to assert personal compensation demands against the other party undefined and tenuous. Tokyo then passed a law explicitly barring the assertion of individual damages. Comfort women mobilized by the Japanese military were mentioned only once in relation to a very different issue. They were never discussed as a bilateral problem. The 1965 claims agreement, then, cannot be said to have “settled completely and finally” the question of Japan’s historical responsibility for the victimization of Korean comfort women.
