80th Anniversary of the Opening of the Tokyo Trial: Historical Lessons from Unfinished Justice
The Tokyo Trial established the principle of guilt for aggression and clarified Japan's war responsibility and historical truth Looking back at the evidence and judgments on the Nanjing Massacre and other events, safeguard the peace order and prevent tragedy from happening again
May 3 marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trials. From 1946 to 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East carried out a legal reckoning of Japan's war of aggression through largescale hearings and evidence review, establishing the important international legal principle that "aggression is criminal," and laying the foundation for the postWorld War II international order.
The article reviews the difficult process in which Chinese and foreign prosecutors at the time collected evidence of crimes such as the Nanjing Massacre, stressing that the Tokyo Trials were not a matter of "the victors judging the vanquished," but an international judicial practice built on strict procedures and extensive evidence. The verdict ultimately imposed different sentences on 28 defendants, forming a historical conclusion on the war responsibility of militarism.
The article also points out that the Tokyo Trials did not fully complete the reckoning for all war crimes, and some historical issues were downplayed in the context of the Cold War, with some war criminals and related forces later reentering Japanese politics and society. The author believes that, against the backdrop of continued trends in Japanese society of denying history and glorifying aggression, the international community should continue to defend historical truth, uphold the peace order, and prevent the tragedy of war from happening again.