Post-trial

Australia’s trials ended in April 1951, and just a few months later in September, the San Francisco Peace Treaty signalled that the Occupation would end the following year and Japan would return to the international community. A nationwide petition movement in Japan began calling for the repatriation of war criminals who had been convicted by Allied courts and resided in overseas prisons, such as some of those convicted by Australia who were now imprisoned on Manus Island. Meanwhile, other war criminals who were convicted by Australian courts resided in Sugamo Prison in Tokyo, and the Japanese government was bound by Article 11 of the peace treaty to keep them in prison until the convicting country allowed their release. Article 11 was not enough to reassure the Australian government that the Japanese would respect the decisions handed down in its war crimes courts, however, and this made the government anxious over repatriating the war criminals on Manus. In Japan, the petition movement began to pressure the Japanese government and the Australian embassy for the return of these prisoners.

The Changing Political Context

During the early years of the Australian trials, the international political context was favourable. The U.S. led Occupation of Japan was focused on reforming or punishing Japan. The threat of communism to regional security and the hopes of a democratic Japan, however, was never far from the minds of key U.S. thinkers, in both Japan and Washington. Gradually the Occupation entered a second phase, the Reverse Course. The U.S. began to take steps to rehabilitate the Japanese economy and support Japan’s recovery from the war, in an effort to strengthen Japanese institutions against communist influence. In this new political climate, war crimes prosecutions quickly became unfashionable. The Australian government remained suspicious of Japan throughout the Reverse Course, and found it hard to accept the U.S. line that communism was now a greater threat to the Pacific than Japan.

Building a Case against the War Criminals

Long before the Second World War ended, the Allies were planning to prosecute Axis war criminals, including both those in positions of leadership and the perpetrators of individual crimes. There was no standing war crimes court at the end of the Second World War, however, and the post-war trials were a watershed in international law. For the trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo, Allied planners drew on the development of international humanitarian law and international agreements signed by the combatants over the decades preceding the war. The vast majority of war criminals who were prosecuted did not face the court at Nuremberg or Tokyo: they appeared before national military tribunals which were conducted according to each prosecuting country’s war crimes law. The Australian War Crimes Act passed through the parliament in October 1945, shortly before trials began.

The First Phase of the Prosecutions, 1945–1948

With legal questions resolved, and a widespread public and official determination to bring Japan to justice, the Australian prosecutions began in November 1945 with great impetus. Trials began at venues around the Pacific, in Asia and in Darwin. Though the original schedule for the number of prosecutions was ambitious, early progress was good. The trials encountered headwinds in 1947, however, and resourcing them became a problem. Progress eventually slowed and the trials entered a period of uncertainty.

Japan and Australia, 1944–1946

When the Second World War ended, the Australian government sought to establish the country as a major player in regional diplomacy. An early focus of Australia’s new and energetic foreign policy agenda was regional security, and in particular, bringing Japan to account for the war. After some early frustrations with its major allies, the Australian government was given several key roles in the Occupation of Japan. The Occupation began with the goals of democratizing and reforming Japan, and prosecuting war criminals was a key part of this early agenda. Meanwhile in Australia, the public demanded the government begin a resolute process of bringing war criminals to justice.

Conclusion

Commerce began to dominate relations between Japan and Australia in 1957. The Japanese prime minister, Kishi Nobusuke (1896–1987), and representatives of the Australian government, signed the Japan-Australia Agreement on Commerce in Hakone, Japan, on 6 July 1957, in what was considered in both Japan and Australia to be a landmark trade deal....

A New Direction

In 1954, the Australian government moved on from its cautious approach to Japan, and charted a new course in Australia-Japan relations, where the government would do all that it could to develop close political ties with Japan. War criminals though, remained an important issue in Japan and after they were repatriated the Australian government began to receive calls from Japan for their release. Even with Australia-Japan relations moving towards a new era though, the government was reluctant to simply release the war criminals. Instead the government sought a legal solution where the prisoners could be released on parole or have their sentences reduced. The conditions for the reduction of sentences became ever more lenient and in 1957, all remaining war criminals convicted by Australian courts were released.

Procedure

The Australian prosecutions were a difficult balance of several competing imperatives. The government, military, legal professionals and the public all, on balance, called for trials that were fair and upheld the highest standards of Western justice. The prosecutions needed to be effective though, and it was thought that justice out to be carried out swiftly. To maintain this balance, the Australian trials featured procedures that were uncommon in civilian courts and even in pre-war military courts. Cases could be built on affidavit evidence only, and accused war criminals could not avoid a guilty conviction by blaming their crimes on the military chain of command.

The Second Phase

When the Australian trials encountered logistical difficulties in 1947 and 1948, it came at a time when Australia’s allies were moving away from prosecutions and other measures to punish Japan. The government could have ended its prosecutions in late 1948 to match U.S. policy for the Occupation of Japan, but instead it began a process of navigating the logistical difficulties the program had encountered. The Australian trials completely stalled in 1949, and the ruling Labor government lost power at the December 1949 federal election. The new Liberal government, led by Sir Robert Menzies, built on Labor’s work while in government and rejuvenated the Australian prosecutions. They began on Manus Island, in June 1950. Starting a second phase of prosecutions at this late stage was only possible after some tense negotiations with the U.S. leadership in Occupied Japan, and the decision was a major shock to the Japanese people, which resulted in a grass roots political movement to petition the Australian government to reverse its decision.

Introduction

For Australia’s government, military, and people, the conflict with Japan that lasted from December 1941 to August 1945 was by far the most significant part of the Second World War. During those years Australian and Commonwealth forces, alongside those of the United States, battled the Japanese military on land, at sea, and in the air in a series of ferocious and bloody encounters. Japan achieved great military success early in its war against the US and its allies; at its peak the Japanese empire encompassed large areas of East and South East Asia and the Pacific. As a result of their sweeping early victories, Japanese forces captured roughly 320,000 prisoners, of whom 140,000 were Allied soldiers. The rest were civilians in areas that Japanese forces occupied....