전범재판의 이념과 시사점 - 일본 전범재판을 중심으로 -

Abstract

International war crime tribunals in Tokyo of Japan and Nürnberg of Germany were the first international courts that handled international crimes but were not international criminal courts in a true sense. To be a genuine international criminal court, the court needs to be already constituted before the criminal act has been performed and the judges of the court should be composed of those from the countries directly involved as well as politically neutral countries. because the two aforementioned courts were constituted by the occupying nations after the Second World War, the genuineness of the international criminal court is lacking. Furthermore, a continuous effort to make a true international criminal court is not paying off due to the oppositions by the USA, China, Russia, and etc.two war crime trials after the Second World War were led by the USA and they took too lightly of the problems of an ex post facto law. It is understandable that tribunal may have thought it necessary in order to bring war criminals to justice but it is also necessary to rethink whether the principle of legality can simply be overlooked.to Germany, revealing the circumstances of the war crime that Japan had done and prosecuting it lacks the initiative. Above all things, the emperor of the Japanese imperialism was not prosecuted and even maintained his throne. At the end, only a few war criminals were prosecuted and the authorities of the militarism were able to avoid the punishment and continued to uphold their power. I believe this inadequate war crime punishment led to current Japan's incomprehensible remorselessness compared to Germany. The fact that 199 people were indicted for war crimes in Germany while only 28 people were indicted in Japan makes this point more clear.