The 2015 South Korean–Japanese Agreement on ‘Comfort Women’

A Critical Analysis

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12822263
AutoresK Ramaj (0000-0003-3998-5532, University of Cambridge, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume22
Fascículo3
Páginas475-509
Data de publicação2022-02-04
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Criminal Law Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1567-536X • E-ISSN: 1571-8123
EditoraBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/15718123-bja10127
OpenAlexW4213261353
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas4

Before and during the Second World War, Japan established a legalised system of sexual slavery, in which approximately up to 200 000 women, euphemistically known as ‘comfort women’, were exploited. Although the victims came from all the regions of the Japanese Empire, the majority of them were Korean. While initial reconciliation attempts were met with refusal, a seemingly positive step was taken in December 2015, when South Korea and Japan announced that they had reached an agreement which would ‘finally and irreversibly’ resolve this issue. The main argument developed throughout the present article is that the agreement does not do justice in addressing the victims’ needs and rights in many ways, with the need for acknowledgement and memorialisation being primarily neglected. A critical evaluation of the 2015 agreement is particularly important in light of its suspension due to the dissolution of the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation

Acknowledgement · Agreement · Argument (complex analysis · Comfort women · Economic Justice · Empire · Political science · Sociology · Gender, Security, and Conflict · History · Japanese History and Culture · Korean Peninsula Historical and Political Studies · Law · Medicine · Philosophy