한일간 '위안부' 합의의 법적 쟁점과 개선과제

Abstract

Up to 200,000 “comfort women” from the Republic of Korea (hereinafter referred to as “Korea”) and other parts of East Asia were forced into Imperial Japan’s military prostitution from the 1930s to the end of the World War II. The Korean Government concluded a political arrangement on the “comfort women” reparation with Japanese Government in December 28, 2015. Two governments created novel legal framework for funds compensation based on Japanese legal or moral responsibility, the nature of which has remained unclear and ambiguous in the text. The Japanese Government acknowledged responsibility for “comfort women” and Prime Minister Abe expressed anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to the victims in his official capacity. Japan pledged to contribute from its budget 1 billion yen, which will be used by the Korean Government to create a foundation to support the survivors. In return, the Korean Government agreed that the issue was resolved finally and irreversibly, which was expected to upset individual judicial remedy. Apart from the failure to admit legal responsibility, the arrangement is silent about response to “comfort women” denial by Japanese prominent officials. But perhaps the greatest defect of the arrangement was indeed its finality and irreversibility devoid of weighing in on the side of the “comfort women.”In this Article, I focus on the effect of the “comfort women” arrangement on individual judicial remedy. The arrangement might suppress individual judicial claims for compensation. It is not difficult to expect that the Japanese court will continue to rely on the arrangement as well as post-war treaties and other technical grounds to avoid compensation.