Rethinking Justice? Decolonization, Cold War, and Asian War Crimes Trials after 1945

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Rethinking Justice? Decolonization, Cold War, and Asian War Crimes Trials after 1945

Veranstalter
Dr. Kerstin von Lingen, Junior Research Group "Transcultural Justice: Legal Flows and the Emergence of International Law within the War Crimes Trials in East Asia, 1945-1954", Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context", Rupprecht Karls Universität Heidelberg
Veranstaltungsort
Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg (IWH)
Ort
Heidelberg
Land
Deutschland
Vom - Bis
26.10.2014 - 29.10.2014
Deadline
20.10.2014
Website
www.transcultural-justice.uni-hd.de
Von
Dr. Kerstin von Lingen

The War Crimes Trials which took place in Asia in the aftermath of the Second World War can be understood as sites where new ideologies of international law were constructed in the mid-twentieth century. The crisis faced by old European empires in the aftermath of the Japanese challenge and the rise of anti-colonial movements which erupted across much of the region in the mid-1940s and 1950s provided the political context for these trials. The onset of the Cold War was yet another key factor in shaping power relations and expectations about international justice that affected all the key political actors.

The war crimes trials in Asia were a watershed moment which marked the demise of an old political-legal order (defined by European hegemony) and the advent of a new, anti-imperial one (based on contestations between the American and Soviet blocs and the rise of postcolonial nation-states). The trials themselves served as critically significant sites for producing new visions of legality and political legitimation which would mark this period of transition.

In this conference particular focus lays on the planning of the war crimes trials, their impact on global politics, and on the movements of legal personnel and concepts associated with the trials. Attention is placed on the trials in East, South-East, and South Asia, where the politics of Cold War and decolonization became sharply intertwined, linking local political imperatives of decolonizing societies with the geopolitical considerations of the major global powers. The argument is that diverse and competing Euro-American, Communist, and anti-imperial expectations about law lay at the very centre of the genesis of new ways of thinking about and implementing international justice brought about by the trials. The trials will be investigated in terms of their specific strategic histories as well as their long-term contributions and legacies in generating shifts in notions of international order. The broader objective is thus to place the trials at the centre of histories of decolonization and Cold War, bringing into a common platform discussions on war crimes trials which are often pursued through fragmented area studies approaches, and to investigate the common threads which connect the trials in interrelation with each other and with the broader histories of the threshold times which these trials helped to shape.

Conference website:
http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/conferences/rethinking-justice.html
(very limited space, attendance only upon written request at amend@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de)

Programm

Programme
Sunday, 26 Oct 2014
Opening of the conference: Decolonization, Anti-Imperialism and the Pursuit of Justice. Some Observations
18.00 - 18.20
Kerstin von LINGEN (Heidelberg/ Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”): Coming to Terms with War Crimes in Asia in the Wake of Decolonization and Cold War Politics - Introduction
18.20 - 18.40
Fabian KLOSE (Mainz/ Leibniz Institute of European History): End of Empire and International Humanitarian Law

Discussion
Monday, 27 Oct 2014
9.00 Welcome from the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg IWH (Prof. Peter COMBA)
Session 2: Tokyo and its Legacies on Decolonization (chair: Annette WEINKE, Jena)
9.15 - 9.35
Barak KUSHNER (Cambridge/ Department of East Asian Studies): Decolonization and the Search for Justice in the Imperial Aftermath: Japanese Discussions About the Actual Pursuit of Justice
9.35 - 9.55
Neil BOISTER (Waikato University, New Zealand/ Te Piringa Faculty of Law): Colonialism, Anti-Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism in China: The Opium Question at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal
Discussion
10.45 – 11.05
Beatrice TREFALT (Monash University, Melbourne/ School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics): The French Prosecution of Japanese War Crimes at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East: Reframing the History of the Japanese Occupation of Indochina

11.05-11.25
Milinda BANERJEE (Presidency University, Kolkata/ Department of History): Can Sovereignty be Decolonized? Judge Radhabinod Pal’s Dissenting Judgment at Tokyo from a Perspective of Global Intellectual History
Discussion
GROUP PICTURE
Lunch Break 12.15 - 14.15
Session 3: Case studies from East Asia: Korea (chair: Franziska SERAPHIM, Boston College)
14.15 - 14.35
Deokhyo CHOI (Cambridge/ Department of East Asian Studies): Defining Colonial “War Crimes”: Korean Debates on Collaboration, War Reparations, and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
14.35 - 14.55
Sandra WILSON (Murdoch University, Perth/ School of Arts): Korea and Koreans in the Asian War Crimes Trials

14.55 – 15.15
Dean ASZKIELOWICZ (Murdoch University, Perth/ School of Arts): The Australian Government’s Pursuit of Korean and Formosan ‘Japanese’ War Criminals
Discussion
Tuesday, 28 Oct 2014
Session 4: Case studies from South and South-East Asia: British War Crimes Trials at Singapore, Burma and in India (chair: Wolfgang FORM, ICWC Marburg)
9.00 - 9.20
Wui Ling CHEAH (National University of Singapore/ Faculty of Law): The British Military’s Prosecution of Japanese War Crimes in Colonial Singapore: A Historical and Socio-Legal Study
9.20 - 9.40
Kirsten SELLARS (Chinese University of Hong Kong/ Faculty of Law): Another Meaning of Treason: The Red Fort Trials and Their Legal Legacy
Discussion
10.30 - 10.50
Yuma TOTANI (University of Hawaii, Honolulu/ Department of History): The Japanese Crimes against Civilians in the China-Burma-India Theatre: Case Studies from the UK War Crimes Proceedings

10.50 – 11.10
Robert CRIBB (Australian National University, Canberra/ School of History, Culture and Language): Forgotten Prisoners: Japanese War Criminals in Rangoon Jail, 1946-1951
Discussion
Lunch Break 12.00 - 14.00
Session 5: Case studies: Anti-Imperial Justice? The Cold War Context and the Sino-Soviet war Crimes trials policy (chair: Tanja PENTER, Heidelberg, Department for Eastern European History)
14.00 - 14.20
Konrad LAWSON (St. Andrews/ School of History): Retribution and Civil War: Communist and Nationalist Traitor Elimination Work 1945-1948
14.20 - 14.40
Anja BIHLER (Heidelberg/ Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”): The Question of Legitimacy - Chinese War Crimes Trials on Taiwan
Discussion

15.30 – 15.50
Valentyna POLUNINA (Heidelberg/ Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”): Belated Justice: Soviet War Crimes Trials Policy on Bacteriological Warfare – the Case of Khabarovsk Trial (1949)
15.50-16.10
Adam CATHCART (Leeds/ Chinese History): The Shenyang Trials of 1956: The Resurrection of Defeat

Discussion

Wednesday, 29 Oct 2014
Session 6: Case Studies from South-East Asia: Dutch Trials in Indonesia (chair: Peter ROMIJN, NIOD Amsterdam)
9.00-9.20
Lisette SCHOUTEN (Heidelberg: Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context”): The Price of Justice? Dutch East Indies' War Crimes Trials in the Face of Decolonization
9.20 – 9.40
Esther ZWINKELS (Leiden/ Institute for History): Puppets, Profiteers and Traitors. Collaborator Trials in the Netherlands Indies 1945-49
Discussion

10.30 Concluding Debate (chair: Kerstin von LINGEN/ Barak KUSHNER): Decolonization and Cold War as Determining Factors in War Crimes Trials Policy in Asia

Departure

Kontakt

Dr. Kerstin von Lingen, Junior Research Group Leader of JRG “Transcultural Justice: Legal Flows and the Emergence of International Law within the War Crimes Trials in East Asia, 1945-1954” at the Cluster of Excellence „Asia and Europe in a Global Context“, Heidelberg University

Conference attendance only upon written request, please enroll at amend@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de

www.transcultural-justice.uni-hd.de
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