National Interest or Transnational Alliances? Japanese Policy on the Comfort Women Issue

Ku, Yangmo

doi:10.1017/s159824080000936x

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…A second way NGOs have supported Korea-Japan reconciliation is by addressing historical grievances with means other than litigation. Likely the most intractable historical issue for government-level talks is the colonial-era "comfort women" system of coercive wartime sexual servitude (Suzuki 2014;Ku 2015a). Many actors pursuing redress for the women have been Japanese and Korean scholars (Wada 2008;Szczepanska 2014).…”

Section: Civil Society Productively Influencing Foreign Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…15 The "Korean Council" filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government in 1991 and called for an investigation of war crimes at the International Commission on Human Rights in 1992 and at the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. Civic groups have also taken a rights-based approach via the Women's International Tribunal on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery (Chinkin 2001), the World Council of Churches, the International Commission of Jurists, International Fellowship of Reconciliation (Hicks 1997, 124, 172), and by promoting women's rights as human rights in Asia (Chou 2003;Ku 2015b).…”

Section: Pushing Court Decisions That Challenge Established Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Korean NGOs and Reconciliation with Japan

Easley¹

2023

J. East Asian Stud.

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Strained South Korea–Japan ties are frequently attributed to the use and abuse of history by national leaders. This article considers a more bottom-up explanation by examining how Korean civil society is taking three different pathways to exert influence on bilateral relations. First, non-governmental organizations are expanding domestic and international awareness of grievances regarding Japan's 1910–1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. Second, activists are pushing court cases in attempts to change legal interpretations and government policies. Third, certain civic groups demand maximalist positions on history and stigmatize cooperation with Tokyo. While influential over Korean public opinion, these efforts win few hearts and minds in Japan and complicate productive diplomacy. With particular attention to the 2015 Korea–Japan agreement for “comfort women” survivors and the 2018 South Korean Supreme Court decisions on wartime labor, this article unpacks the relationship between activist Korean civil society and historical reconciliation with Japan, offering implications for foreign policy and state-society relations.

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Section: Civil Society Productively Influencing Foreign Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pushing Court Decisions That Challenge Established Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Korean NGOs and Reconciliation with Japan

Easley¹

2023

J. East Asian Stud.

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“…Framing grievances in terms of formal human rights also highlighted similarities with other transnational movements. The Korean comfort women's movement, for example, effectively tapped into a rising awareness of women's rights and sexual violence internationally (Piper ; Ku : 256). Hence, UN bodies issued supportive reports in the 1990s and criticized the 2015 Japan–ROK agreement on the issue ( The Japan Times ).…”

Section: Litigation's “Radiating Effects” and The Mechanisms Behind Themmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has raised the issue's profile, spurred supportive resolutions in foreign legislatures, and delegitimized the 2015 agreement on the comfort women issue between Japan and the ROK. It also contributed to diplomatic stalemates and backlash, such as the 3-year hiatus in bilateral Japan-Korea summit meetings from May 2012 to November 2015 and right-wing counter-mobilization in Japan (Kim and Sohn 2017;Ku 2015).…”

Section: Litigation's "Radiating Effects" and The Mechanisms Behind Themmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mechanisms behind Litigation's “Radiating Effects”: Historical Grievances against Japan

Arrington¹

2019

Law Soc Rev

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Scholars argue that litigation can have positive and negative “radiating” or indirect effects for social movements, irrespective of formal judicial decisions. They see litigation as a dynamic process with distinctive features yet nonetheless intertwined with advocacy in other forums. Litigation can indirectly shape collective identities, reframe debates, or provide political leverage. However, the mechanisms behind these radiating effects are poorly understood. Through an analysis of lawsuits and related activism by Korean survivors of Japanese actions in the first half of the twentieth century, this article disaggregates the mechanisms behind litigation's productive indirect effects. It theorizes and illustrates mechanisms such as attribution of similarity, brokerage, issue dramatization, political cover, and intergroup discussions. These mechanisms help us understand how litigants obtain litigation's indirect effects and thus also the broader impact of postwar compensation lawsuits in East Asia, despite few judicial victories. The article contributes non‐Western and transnational cases to scholarship on litigation's indirect effects.

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Obama’s Pivot to Asia and Its Failed Japan-South Korea Historical Reconciliation

Liu

2018

East Asia

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National Interest or Transnational Alliances? Japanese Policy on the Comfort Women Issue

Cited by 6 publications

References 17 publications

Korean NGOs and Reconciliation with Japan

Korean NGOs and Reconciliation with Japan

The Mechanisms behind Litigation's “Radiating Effects”: Historical Grievances against Japan

Obama’s Pivot to Asia and Its Failed Japan-South Korea Historical Reconciliation

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