Quartermasters can also fight the devils

On September 2, 1945, Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru and Japanese Chief of the General Staff General Umezu Yoshijiro signed on behalf of Japan and presented the Japanese government's surrender document to General MacArthur, the American representative for the nine Allied powers, which fully accepted the terms of the Buchenstein Declaration.

The surrender document clearly stated: "We are hereby ordered by the Emperor, the Japanese government and the Japanese military headquarters to accept the resolution announced by the heads of the governments of the United States, China and England at Potsdam on July 26, as well as the terms of the subsequent announcement signed by the Soviet Union."

Article 6 of the surrender document stated: "We undertake for the Emperor, the Japanese Government and their successors to faithfully carry out the terms of the Potsdam Declaration."

Since the Japanese government accepted all the terms in the Potsdam Declaration, it also naturally accepted the clause that "war criminals will be subject to severe legal sanctions."

The Potsdam Declaration stipulated the surrender terms that the Japanese government must accept, but in form it still required a specific legal basis authorized by the Allies. This legal basis was a resolution passed at the meeting of foreign ministers of the Soviet Union, the United States and England held in Moscow, Soviet Union in December 1945. The Chinese government also expressed its agreement to this resolution. Therefore, this became a unanimous resolution of the four major countries fighting against Japan.

The resolution stipulated that the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan should take all necessary measures to induce the Japanese government to surrender and to ensure that all terms of occupation and control of Japan could be successfully implemented.

Therefore, this resolution gave the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan enormous and extensive powers. At the same time, legally speaking, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan was also obliged to implement the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration to the Allied countries, especially the provisions on severe punishment of Japanese war criminals.

In accordance with the resolution of the Allies at the Moscow Conference, General MacArthur of the United States, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Far East, issued a "Special Notice on the Establishment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East" on January 19, 1946, after diplomatic consultations with the surrendered Allied countries.

In the notice, General MacArthur of the United States, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Far East, stated that since the United States and its allies had jointly resisted the illegal war of aggression waged by the Axis powers, various countries had repeatedly spoken out, making it clear that they were determined to bring legal sanctions to war criminals.

Because the United States, England and the Soviet Union studied and discussed the issue of the Japanese government's implementation of the surrender terms at the Moscow Conference on December 26, 1945, and later with the consent of the Chinese government, it was determined that the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Far East would issue all special orders and regulations.

Among them, the first is to establish the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which is responsible for trying Japanese war criminals accused of committing any crime that constitutes a threat to peace as individuals or as members of a group, or both as individuals and as members of a group.

Article 2 is about the organization, jurisdiction and powers of the tribunal, the details of which are described in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

Article 3. Nothing in this Order shall in any way prejudice the jurisdiction of any international, national, occupation, or other tribunal which may or may be established in Japan or in any area of ​​a United Nations power which is at war with Japan for the purpose of trying war criminals.

Japan's major war criminals or Class A war criminals will be tried and punished in accordance with legal procedures by a formally organized international tribunal.

This was a very important event after the Second World War and a great innovation in international law and international relations. In the past, the leaders of a defeated country, even if they were the culprits of launching an aggressive war, were generally required to pay compensation through treaties signed by the country, but individuals had never been tried in court or punished by law.

At the same time, there were two remaining issues in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East's review of Japanese war criminals. The first was the issue of chemical weapons left behind by the Japanese army in China.

Because the Japanese army used a large number of chemical weapons during the war with the Chinese government, and the leakage of unexploded chemical weapons left by the Japanese army in China after Japan's surrender caused a lot of harm to the Chinese people.

The first group of lawsuits, consisting of 13 Chinese claimants, involved damages caused by three leaks of chemical weapons left behind by the Japanese army in Heilongjiang Province, China. The second group of lawsuits involved four leaks of chemical weapons left behind by the Japanese army in Northeast China.

The subsequent trial results were mixed. In the first group of lawsuits from China, the Japanese court awarded the plaintiffs a considerable amount of compensation. Of course, the Japanese government immediately appealed after receiving the verdict. During the appeal stage, the Japanese government claimed that the chemical weapons in China's northeast region might have been left behind by the Soviet army, or even by the Chinese government's army itself.

The second set of claims was rejected because the chemical weapons leak occurred outside Japan. Regardless of whether the Japanese government provided the Chinese government with relevant information on the burial locations of the chemical weapons before the incident, it would have been impossible to prevent the leak.

If the Japanese court only meant that the damage resulted from unforeseen circumstances, then there is still the issue of responsibility for actual damage to Chinese citizens, and the ammunition that caused the damage was, by all likelihood, left behind by the Japanese army.

A related issue that should be raised in discussing these lawsuits is the Japanese government's obligations under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

With regard to old and abandoned chemical weapons, Article III, paragraph 1(b)(iii) of the Chemical Weapons Convention requires each State Party, not later than thirty days after the entry into force of the Convention for that State Party, to declare whether it has abandoned chemical weapons on the territory of another State and to provide all available information in accordance with paragraph of Part IV(B) of the Verification Annex.

The Japanese government ratified the Convention on September 15, 1995. Therefore, the Chemical Weapons Convention officially entered into force on April 29, 1997 for the Japanese government, just like other States Parties.

The judgment in the second set of lawsuits from China could at least take this obligation to provide information into account, since the judgment was issued long after the Convention came into force for the Japanese government. Therefore, the Japanese court’s claim that even if information about the locations of chemical weapons was provided, it could not ensure a different result is not valid. The Japanese court obviously used such an excuse.

It was not until July 1999 that the governments of China and Japan signed a memorandum on the destruction of chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese troops in China.