Neeraja Jyothikumar, B.A. (Hons.) Global Affairs 2019.
Tokyo Trial is the real-life story of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The four-episode series depicts the real-life story of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
The Tokyo Trial saw the end of the Japanese empire’s brutal regime. It helped lay down the foundation for International Criminal Law as well as International Call of Justice. It was only the second time in history the International Tribunal sentenced people to prison and to death, but its barely mentioned in history and spoken about.
In 1854, USA forced Japan to open its ports and markets. Until then Japan had been living in a self-imposed isolation for centuries. Japanese leaders wrapped their minds around the fact that they had become weak compared to the rest of the world. This triggered them to go on to create a plan to rapidly westernize, modernize and industrialize Japan.
As Japanese economy grew in lightning speed and soon ran out of resources to run that modern economy that it had given rise to. As a result, Japan would fight several wars to gain access to foreign resources to meet their needs. The Japanese ended up taking over a large part of Asia until its defeat at the hands of allied powers. It had bow became apparent that they were committing atrocities and crimes to mankind on a massive scale.
Various powers had come to declare that the leaders of Japan will be punished. The question of how Japanese leaders would be punished fell mostly in the hands of the USA. The USA decided to largely copy the system used to punish German leadership after World War II, the Nuremberg Trials. It was a military tribunal to prosecute Germany’s leaders for war crimes.
And so, the USA established the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The Tokyo Trials. With this came along the question of who would participate in the trial. It was decided that only the 9 Countries who signed the surrender of Japan would get to sit in judgement of Japan as well as India and Philippines. And so, the tribunal would have 11 judges and 11 prosecution teams from each of the 11 countries. They came from Australia, India, Canada, China, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Soviet Union, the UK, and the USA. The defense however was compromised of ¼ US lawyers and ¾ Japanese lawyers.
The show very well covers the legal and political battles that were fought for two and a half years, beginning in April 1946. All judges are portrayed excellently, and a lot of importance has been given to their unique personalities and decisions. Twenty-eight Japanese leaders were put on trial by Douglas MacArthur’s tribunal. The crimes committed by the Japanese defendants were inhumane, however, at the time they were carried out as acts of aggression as a part of war. Charging these officials for “crimes” that happened to be legal then did not seem like the right decision.
Personally, it is Irrfan Khan for me who provides moral clarity and manages to point out the hypocrisy bought into the judgement. Radhabinod Pal, played by Irrfan khan as a judge from India provides a rational and analytical attitude to the story. The impact he made on the panel of judges is immediate and he had a strong belief that the idea of justice imposed by the allies were out of spite.
Did the majority make the right decision?
Watch and judge for yourself.
The opinions expressed and suggestions made in the article belong solely to the author themselves. Diplomania and O.P. Jindal Global University do not endorse the same.
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