Quartermasters can also fight the devils

This provision of Article 3 of the Fourth Hague Convention does not specify to whom the compensation should be paid, but one thing is clear: at the time of the Tokyo Trial of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, there were already examples in international law that states had the obligation to compensate individuals for injuries or unfair treatment in accordance with the terms of the treaty.

It may also be pointed out that Article 3 of the Fourth Hague Convention opens a channel for civil claims in international criminal proceedings for violations of the Fourth Hague Convention, which were classified as international crimes and punished by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal.

Of course, State responsibility and individual responsibility differ in nature and effect, even when they arise from the same violation of an international treaty, but Article 3 of Hague Convention IV does not prevent persons injured by acts of the armed forces of a Contracting State from bringing private claims.

In other words, Article 3 of the Fourth Hague Convention does not exclude the attribution of individual liability to the relevant Contracting State, which would make individual liability part of state responsibility. In order to fulfill this state responsibility, Article 3 of the Fourth Hague Convention explicitly provides for compensation.

On the other hand, for lawsuits involving chemical weapons abandoned by the Japanese military, neither the state action theory nor the statute of limitations issue can deprive them of their validity under Japanese law because the relevant harmful effects were only realized relatively recently.

Moreover, although the Japanese legal system before 1946 recognized the theory of state action, it does not mean that claims related to wartime actions or war consequences cannot be made today. After all, even the strict rules of statute of limitations did not prevent the Japanese Supreme Court from making an interpretation in 1998 that it was not applicable on the basis of fairness and justice.

Similarly, questions of interpretation of domestic law and public international law concerning foreigners should in any case take into account the intertemporal concept of international law so that the application of legal rules is in line with today's circumstances.

On April 25, 1956, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China decided that the Supreme People's Court would establish a special military tribunal to prosecute Japanese war criminals. Although most of the prosecuted Japanese war suspects were detained in Fushun, the Chinese People's Government still decided to move the trial to Shenyang because the Japanese army created the "September 18th" Incident in Shenyang and then launched a large-scale war of aggression against China. The trial of Japanese war criminals in Shenyang has special historical significance.

To conduct the trial, the Supreme People's Court appointed the president, vice presidents and judges of the Special Military Court. On May 1, 1956, Zhang Dingcheng, Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, issued an indictment against 45 Japanese war criminals who committed various crimes during the Japanese invasion of China, and filed four cases with the Special Military Court of the Supreme People's Court of China.

From June 9 to July 20, 1956, the Special Military Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China held public trials in Shenyang and Taiyuan respectively of 45 detained Japanese war criminals, including former Japanese military officers Suzuki Keihisa, Fujita Shigeru, Takebe Rokuzo, Furumi Tadayuki and others who had committed heinous crimes against the Chinese people since the September 18th Incident.

The first case was that of Suzuki Keihisa and seven other war criminals. Suzuki Keihisa was the commander of the 117th Division of the Japanese Army. The eight were accused of committing crimes such as massacre, torture, ill-treatment, enslavement and other crimes that blatantly violated the norms of international law and humanitarian principles.

The second case is that of former Japanese spy chief Juntaro Tominaga, who was charged with war crimes and espionage.

The third case was that of Shirono Hiroshi and seven other criminals, who were accused of war crimes not only during World War II, but also during the Chinese Civil War when they defected to Yan Laoxi's army and served as high-ranking officers.

The fourth case was that of Rokuzo Takebe and seven others, who were accused of manipulating the puppet government of Manchukuo and brutally ruling the people of Northeast China.

From June 9 to June 19, 1956, the First Division of the Shenyang Special Military Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court held a public trial of Suzuki Keihisa and seven others. Yuan Guang was the presiding judge and Wang Zhiping was the chief prosecutor. They also pioneered the first live recording of a trial in China.

According to the specific circumstances of the crimes committed by each defendant and the relevant decisions of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Congress, the court declared the eight defendants guilty and sentenced them to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from thirteen to twenty years.

On June 12, 1956, the Special Military Court in Taiyuan publicly tried the cases of Juntaro Tominaga and Hiroshi Shirono and seven others. Zhu Yaotang served as the presiding judge and Jing Zhuokuni served as the chief prosecutor.

On June 20, the Special Military Court found all the defendants guilty, sentencing Juntaro Tominaga to 20 years in prison, and the other eight criminals to prison terms ranging from 8 to 18 years.

From July 1 to July 7, 1956, the Second Court in Shenyang publicly tried the case of Takebe Rokuzo and 27 other people. Jia Qian was the presiding judge and Li Fushan was the chief prosecutor. These 28 former Japanese military officers were found guilty and sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 12 to 20 years.

All convicted Japanese war criminals began serving their sentences from the date the verdict was announced, and the days they were detained from the date of their arrest to the date of sentencing could be deducted from their sentences.

After the Tokyo Trial of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, China continued to try Japanese Class B and Class C war criminals domestically, also in accordance with international and domestic laws.

At the level of international law, as early as January 13, 1942, the nine European governments that were occupied by the German army and exiled to England issued a declaration at St. James's Palace in London, clearly stating that the main objectives of the war included punishing Nazi war criminals who had committed war crimes or were responsible through organized judicial channels, regardless of whether they ordered crimes, committed crimes or participated in crimes, and that the Allied powers were determined to witness together in the spirit of international solidarity that those who had committed war crimes or were responsible, regardless of their nationality, would be searched out and brought to trial, and that the sentences imposed in court would be strictly enforced.

Jin Wensi, the Chinese government's ambassador to the Netherlands, also attended the declaration ceremony and published a written statement in British newspapers, clearly stating that the principle of holding Germany accountable for war crimes also applies to holding Japanese war criminals accountable for atrocities committed in China.

At the Moscow Conference in 1943, the Prime Minister of England, the President of the United States, and the top leaders of the Soviet Union also jointly signed the "Declaration on War Atrocities". In this statement, they reiterated that in addition to those "war criminals who will be punished according to the joint decision of the Allied governments", those who should be held responsible for atrocities, killings and cold-blooded massacres will "be sent back to the countries where they committed the atrocities so that they can be tried and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries."