Top court rules in favor of Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor

Diplomacy

Published: 21 Dec. 2023, 13:24 Updated: 21 Dec. 2023, 18:41

Top court rules in favor of Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor

Relatives of forced labor victims who won their case against Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, speak with the press on Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, ordering the Japanese companies to compensate the victims and their families. [NEWS1]

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Korean forced labor victims on Thursday in two cases separate from the landmark cases dating back to 2012, ordering Japanese companies Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel to compensate the victims.

To protest the ruling, Hiroyuki Namazu, director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, summoned the political counselor of the Korean Embassy in Japan, Kim Jang-hyun.

The top court upheld the lower courts' rulings on a case where seven victims and their relatives sued Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, renamed Nippon Steel, for the victims' forced labor between 1942 and 1945.

It also upheld the lower courts' rulings on another case where four victims and their relatives sued Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the victims' forced labor between 1944 and 1945.

The Supreme Court ordered the Japanese companies to pay around 100 million won ($76,720) to 150 million won per victim.

These two cases, dating to 2013 and 2014, were filed after the Supreme Court doled out its landmark rulings in May 2012 in favor of Koreans seeking compensation from Japanese companies that used them as forced laborers during Japan's occupation of Korea.

It was the first time that Korean forced labor victims had won their case against Japanese companies.

Japanese companies appealed the landmark rulings in 2012, but the Supreme Court ultimately upheld its original rulings in 2018, ruling in favor of 15 plaintiffs — victims and their relatives — altogether involved in three cases.

This latter decision was met with backlash from Japan and quickly expanded to trade disputes and even put the bilateral security intelligence exchange agreement, Gsomia, at risk of suspension during the previous Moon Jae-in administration through 2022.

In those years, Japanese companies continued to refuse to pay, and the plaintiffs filed for liquidation of the companies' assets. A lower court ruled in favor of the request, but the Japanese companies appealed, and the Supreme Court has not made a ruling yet.

To improve relations with Japan, the Yoon Suk Yeol government proposed a Korea-funded compensation plan earlier this year to compensate the victims involved in the landmark cases, sparking controversy among many victims' groups. The compensation plan would pertain only to the victims involved in the landmark cases.

Of the 15 plaintiffs involved in the landmark rulings, 11 took the Korean corporate-funded compensation money, ranging from 100 million won to 280 million won.

The Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that it will continue to seek ways to communicate with the victims, including those who newly won their cases Thursday.

"The government, together with the foundation, will continue to make sincere efforts to meet each and every victim and bereaved family in person, faithfully explain the government's solutions in a variety of ways, and seek understanding," the ministry's spokesperson Lim Soo-suk said on Thursday.

Thursday's rulings coincided with the renewal of a long-suspended economic consultation group between the governments of Korea and Japan. The last was held in January 2016, before the bilateral relations froze over the forced labor rulings that followed.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]