South Korea’s high court docket orders a third Japanese firm to compensate employees for compelled labor

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s high court docket on Thursday ordered a 3rd Japanese firm to compensate a few of its former wartime Korean workers for compelled labor, the second such ruling in every week.

The South Korean verdict drew fast rebukes from Japan, however observers say it’s unlikely the ruling will trigger any main adverse impacts on bilateral relations, as each governments are critical about bettering their cooperation within the face of shared challenges like North Korea’s nuclear program and China’s assertiveness.

The Supreme Court dominated that shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen Corp. and heavy gear producer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries should give between 50 million received (about $39,000) and 150 million received (about $116,000) in compensation to every of the 17 Korean plaintiffs – one in every of whom is a surviving ex-worker and the remaining bereaved relations.

Mitsubishi and one other Japanese firm, Nippon Steel, have been beforehand given an analogous compensation order by the South Korean court docket, nevertheless it was the primary such ruling for Hitachi.

Among the plaintiffs are the surviving sufferer who suffered a critical burn and the bereaved household of a employee who died throughout an earthquake in Japan in 1944, after they labored for Mitsubishi’s aircraft-making manufacturing unit in Nagoya. Others embrace the relations of late Mitsubishi employees who have been injured throughout the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and one other wartime occasion, in line with a court docket press launch.

A ruling in favor of Korean plaintiffs was broadly anticipated as a result of the Supreme Court in two separate rulings in 2018 ordered Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel to compensate a few of their former Korean workers, saying they have been compelled to supply their labors to the businesses when the Korean Peninsula was colonized by Japan from 1910-45.

On Dec. 21, the highest court docket once more ordered Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel to supply compensation to different Koreans for comparable colonial-era compelled labor.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry responded by summoning a senior South Korean diplomat in Japan to lodge a proper protest. In the assembly, Hiroyuki Namazu, director-general for the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, known as the newest South Korean ruling “extremely regrettable and absolutely unacceptable,” in line with the Japanese ministry.

Namazu maintained Japan‘s long-held position that all compensation issues between the two countries were settled when they normalized ties in 1965.

The South Korean rulings in 2018 and this month argued that the treaty can’t stop people from looking for compensation for compelled labor as a result of Japanese firms’ use of such laborers have been “acts of illegality against humanity” that have been linked to Tokyo’s unlawful colonial occupation and its warfare of aggression.

The 2018 rulings plunged bilateral ties to one in every of their lowest ebbs in many years. Japan imposed export restrictions on key gadgets, whereas South Korea threatened to terminate a army intelligence-sharing pact with Japan. But their ties started bettering considerably in 2023 after South Korea‘s government, now led by conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, established a domestic fund to compensate forced labor victims without demanding Japanese contributions.

Eleven of the 15 former forced laborers or their bereaved families involved in the 2018 rulings had accepted compensation under Seoul’s third-party reimbursement plan, however the remaining 4 refuse to just accept it. Lim Soosuk, spokesperson of South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, mentioned the federal government would search to supply compensation to the Korean plaintiffs associated to Thursday’s ruling by the third-party reimbursement system as nicely.

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Associated Press author Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.