Accountability for War Crimes: WWII Cases in Europe and Asia/Pacific

This panel showcases significant research pieces that have arisen from the history graduate program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the academic year of 2021-2022. The paper by the first presenter (Peter Bushell, “The Charge of Command Responsibility”) sheds light on divergent ways in which the U.S. authorities pursued the accountability of members of the Axis Powers’ armed forces for war crimes following the end of World War II. By making a systematic inquiry into the records of the Yamashita and Honma Trials at the U.S. military commission at Manila in 1945-1946 and the Hostage and High Command Cases at the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (“NMT”) in 1947-1948, this paper assesses the promises and missed opportunities of the post-WWII American justice initiatives. The paper by the second presenter (“Chelly” Zi Ye, “The Early Institutionalization of Military Comfort Women”) delves into a wealth of Japanese-language primary sources to piece together the historical formation of the Japanese military sexual slavery in the initial years of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945). This paper brings to light the vital role played by the pre-existing Japanese human trafficking networks, law enforcement authorities, and bureaucratic officials in developing the practical methods of recruiting, transporting, and receiving women for sex at the Japanese military comfort stations in the China theater. This event is co-sponsored by the History Forum at the Department of History and the War Crimes Documentation Initiative (WCDI) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Event Sponsor
History, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Yuma Totani, (808) 956-8564, yuma.totani@hawaii.edu, https://manoa.hawaii.edu/wcdi/emerging-scholars/2022-04-28/

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