Forced labor committee has first meeting

Legal representatives of Korean victims of forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule hold a press conference in front of the Foreign Ministry in central Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

Representatives of forced labor victims urged direct communication with Japanese companies in the first meeting of a new public-private consultative body on Monday.

The government created a special body to help resolve the issue of Koreans forced into labor by Japanese companies in World War II. Its inaugural meeting Tuesday was chaired by First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong.

The body is comprised of academics, journalists, businesspeople, officials and legal representatives of the victims and their relatives, according to Seoul's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"It is significant that the public and private sectors can be open-minded and have candid discussions regarding the forced labor issue," said Vice Minister Cho at the closed-door meeting. "This venue for dialogue and communication ... will be an important driving force in resolving this issue."

Lawyers representing forced labor victims called on the Korean government to invoke "the right to diplomatic protection" and help them with direct negotiations with Japanese companies that forced Koreans to work.

Diplomatic protection is a right under international law under which a state can seek remedy through diplomatic procedures from a foreign government on behalf of its nationals whose rights and interests have been injured by another state.

Historical issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea have led to a steep deterioration in Seoul-Tokyo relations in recent years.

On Oct. 30, 2018, the Korean Supreme Court made a landmark ruling ordering Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, now called Nippon Steel, to individually compensate Korean victims of forced labor during World War II. It made a similar ruling on Nov. 29, 2018, against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Tokyo protested the rulings, maintaining that all compensation issues related to its colonial rule were resolved in a 1965 treaty normalizing bilateral relations.

Both Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi refused to comply with the rulings, leading to a drawn-out legal process for the liquidation of the companies' assets in Korea. Japan's export restrictions on Korea starting in July 2019 were widely seen as retaliation against the rulings.

The Yoon Suk-yeol administration is trying to mend relations with Tokyo, saying it wants to separate security and economic issues from historical issues.

Tokyo maintains that resolving the issue of the forced labor compensation rulings is a prerequisite for improving relations with Korea.

The victims' lawyers, Jang Wan-ik and Im Jae-seong, and Kim Young-hwan, director of external cooperation at the Center for Historical Truth and Justice, urged the government to make diplomatic efforts. "It is only natural for the victims to directly negotiate with the perpetrator Japanese companies," they said in a joint statement ahead of the meeting Monday.

They asked the Korean government to "invoke the right to diplomatic protection, which was recognized in the Supreme Court decisions in 2018."

"As these are civil lawsuits, the [victims'] lawyers adhered to the position that the related parties should be the ones to resolve the matter," a Korean Foreign Ministry official told reporters Monday. "Basically, this means that the plaintiffs and the defendants should meet and undergo a reconciliation process, and I believe that they want the Foreign Ministry to play a role in this."

The official said that sending the forced labor issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), or another third-country arbitration committee, was "raised quite strongly" during the meeting.

However, the official added, "There was also an objection, saying that a diplomatic solution where we devise a plan domestically and negotiate with Japan should take precedence, pointing out that it would be unrealistic to take things to an arbitration committee immediately."

Regarding media reports on a proposal to create a 30-billion-won fund for the forced labor victims, the official said this was not a government plan and there was no coordination with the Japanese side on such an idea.

It is unclear if the government-civilian consultative body can every come up with a solution that would satisfy everyone, including the victims' relatives. A so-called comfort women deal in 2015 failed to survive a change of presidents in Seoul and resulted in considerable backlash from the victims of the Japanese military's wartime sexual slavery.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]