South Korea Supreme Court orders Japan companies to compensate former victims of forced labor News
RIA Novosti archive, image #35522 / Yuriy Ivanov / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
South Korea Supreme Court orders Japan companies to compensate former victims of forced labor

The Supreme Court of Korea found on Thursday that shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen Corp. and heavy equipment manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries owe 50 million won (approx. $39,000) and 150 million won (approx. $116,000), respectively, to victims of forced labor during World War II. The two companies now owe 16 families of former workers and one former worker based on the finding.

The court’s Thursday ruling upheld two lower court decisions. In January 2019, the Seoul High Court decided that Hitachi Zosen owed damages to its former workers. The same court then found the same for Mitsubishi Heavy in June 2019. Mitsubishi Heavy was also ordered to pay damages to its workers in a 2018 verdict from the Gwangju High Court.

During WWII, hundreds of thousands of Koreans were forced into labor in Japan for supporting Japan in the ongoing war. In 2018, the Supreme Court issued two decisions that ordered the Japanese companies of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and Nippon Steel to compensate 15 Korean employees for wartime forced labor. However, Japanese companies are less likely to pay direct compensations since the payment ordered by the previous judgment has not yet been implemented.

Japan insists that related compensation claims were already addressed by a 1965 treaty which normalized the diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea. Further, Japan regards these verdicts as a violation of provisions in the treaty and asserted that this not only contradicted the official position of South Korean government but also undermined “the basis of bilateral ties.”

Following the 2018 rulings, Japan’s then Foreign Minister Taro Kono said:

If any country gets into an agreement with the Korean government in international law and the Korean Supreme Court could overturn the agreement any time they wish to, it would be difficult for any country to do anything with the South Korean government.

However, the 2018 rulings from South Korea held that the 1965 treaty cannot prevent individuals from seeking compensation under forced labor claims due to the “acts of illegality against humanity” performed by these Japanese companies.

Thursday’s ruling is the second such ruling that the Supreme Court made in a week. On December 21, the court upheld two appellate court decisions against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel. Those decisions held that both companies should pay damages for forced labor during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

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