Court to Announce Verdict on Comfort Women Case on Jan. 13: Will the Court Continue to Deny State Immunity for Anti-Humanitarian Crimes?

[경향신문]

On January 10, the funeral portraits of the deceased comfort women victims are placed next to the “Girl of Peace” statue in front of the former Japanese Embassy in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Kwon Do-hyun

The court ruled that state immunity could not be applied to anti-humanitarian crimes, such as sexual slavery in the Japanese military, and eyes are now on the possibility of a string of similar lawsuits by more victims.

At 2 p.m. January 13, Civil Division 15 (chief judge Min Seong-cheol) of the Seoul Central District Court is scheduled to announce its decision on a compensation claim for damages that twenty people, comfort women victims including the late Gwak Ye-nam and their families, filed against the Japanese government. The lawsuit was filed at the one-year anniversary of the comfort women agreement signed by the governments of South Korea and Japan in 2016, and reportedly, one of the plaintiffs, the elderly Lee Yong-soo will appear in court this day.

Last November, Lee stood in court and testified, “A fourteen year old girl was dragged away. She suffered damages, returned and now stands in this courtroom as an old woman of the Republic of Korea.” She also said, “I have been to the United States, and have filed lawsuits against Japan in the world’s courts, but I have yet to hear an answer on why I was taken by Japan. I have nowhere to turn to anymore. We are asking the judiciary of the Republic of Korea to resolve this.”

Previously, the comfort women victims filed a lawsuit against Japan at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 and at a Washington D.C. federal district court in 2009, but the cases were all closed due to state immunity. State immunity protects a sovereign state from being sued in the courts of other countries. But on January 8, Civil Division 34 (chief judge Kim Jeong-gon) of the Seoul Central District Court, for the first time, ruled that “State immunity cannot be applied to anti-humanitarian crimes,” in a claim for compensation filed by the late Bae Chun-hui, an elderly comfort women victim. Attorney Lee Sang-hee, the legal representative of the elderly Lee said, “Whether or not to recognize sovereignty when a state seriously violates human rights has been a controversial issue in international law and we witnessed rich discussions in the course of the trial.”

If the verdict in the trial of the comfort women victims, scheduled to be announced on January 13, is the same as the precedent, similar lawsuits may follow. After the Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to provide compensation to the victims of forced labor in 2018, other victims filed a string of lawsuits at the Seoul Central District Court.

But some experts argue that in reality, the more victims file similar lawsuits, the farther they push away the apology that the victims of sexual slavery and forced labor are seeking. Even if state immunity is not acknowledged, the court can only order the defendant to pay compensations, so eventually, an apology can only be encouraged through a diplomatic process. The Daejeon District Court seized assets amounting to 800 million won, including two domestic trademark rights, and six patents by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries according to the 2018 Supreme Court ruling. Thus the court has been able to sell the seized property since midnight December 30, but in reality, when considering diplomatic ties, it is not easy to execute such orders.