ABSTRACT
For much of the post war period, the Japanese government repeatedly rewrote school textbooks to conceal and minimize Imperial Japan's World War II deeds. Although the Nuremberg tribunal was similarly flawed because the victors judged the vanquished, it nevertheless had great moral force because it focused on the most culpable individuals and judged them fairly. Instead of being an instrument of impartial justice, the Tokyo Tribunal from its beginning was a "creature of political decision making”. Individually, or as members of organizations, the defendants were charged with a total of fifty-five crimes, categorized as crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Japanese have complained that the Tokyo Tribunal was Eurocentric "in its legal ideas, its personnel, and its historical thinking”. In the case of the Tokyo Tribunal, the laws were those governing crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
