ABSTRACT
According to current understanding of the ‘Nuremberg legacy’, individual criminal punishment in the aftermath of mass atrocities is necessary for the de-collectivization of responsibility, which contributes to the detachment of the leaders most responsible from the majority of the population, the de-collectivization of hatred felt by the victim, and the endorsement of social transformation of the nation by freeing them from the burden of guilt and the traumatic past.1 The aim of this chapter is to examine whether this applies to the case of the Tokyo Trial, by focusing on the perception and understanding of the Japanese, both at the time and at present, regarding responsibility for the war. The chapter does not analyse the Japanese sense of war guilt and responsibility per se. With regard to the aim of this study, the chapter limits the examination of the people’s sense of war responsibility to its relationship to the Tokyo Trial; that is, whether, and to what extent, people’s sense of war responsibility is affected by their leaders having been prosecuted under the international war crimes trial.
