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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 July 2021
Radhabinod Pal, a judge at the Tokyo Tribunal, wrote a dissenting opinion absolving all the accused Japanese of the alleged crimes. In so doing, he advanced several conceptual and theoretical arguments to support his opinion. This paper focuses on the opinion of Pal concerning non-retroactivity of law, global democracy, imperialism, and victor's justice. The paper analyses his opinion in the light of contemporary developments and argues that his criticisms of the international criminal law regime and global justice are still relevant.
MSc (Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford); LLM (South Asian University). This paper is part of a more extensive work that corresponds to the LLM dissertation submitted at South Asian University. The author would like to thank her LLM supervisor Dr Srinivas Burra. The author also thanks Haris Jamil and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
1 MacArthur was the Supreme Commander for the Allied powers in Japan acting under the orders of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. MINEAR, Richard H., Victors’ Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar at 20.
2 Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 19 January 1946, Treaties and Other International Acts Series 1589 (signed in Tokyo on 19 January 1946) [IMTFE/Tokyo Charter].
3 Charter of the International Military Tribunal—Annex to the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, 8 August 1945, 82 U.N.T.S. 284 [IMT/Nuremberg Charter].
4 IMTFE, supra note 2.
5 Partha CHATTERJEE, I Am the People: Reflections on Popular Sovereignty Today (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020) at 7.
6 VARADARAJAN, Latha, “The Trials of Imperialism: Radhabinod Pal's Dissent at the Tokyo Tribunal” (2015) 21 European Journal of International Relations 793CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 798.
7 International Military Tribunal for the Far East (United States et al. v. Araki et al.), Decision of 12 November 1948, Dissentient Judgment of Justice Radhabinod Pal, [1948] at 697 [Pal's Dissent].
8 Prabhakar SINGH, “Reading R.P. Anand in the Postcolony: Between Resistance and Appropriation” in Jochen von BERNSTORFF and Philipp DANN, eds., The Battle for International Law: South-North Perspectives on the Decolonization Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 297 at 308.
9 A.G. NOORANI, “The Yasukani ‘Hero’” Frontline (2 November 2007), online: Frontline <https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl2421/stories/20071102503906000.htm>.
10 Chatterjee, supra note 5 at 10–11.
11 Ibid.
12 Varadarajan, supra note 6 at 794. See also KHAN, Adil Hasan, “Inheriting a Tragic Ethos: Learning from Radhabinod Pal” (2016) 110 AJIL Unbound 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Singh, supra note 8 at 305. See also CHIMNI, B.S., “International Law Scholarship in Post-colonial India: Coping with Dualism” (2010) 23 Leiden Journal of International Law 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 Khan, supra note 12.
15 Richard FALK and David KRIEGER, Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers (New York: Routledge, 2012) at 140.
16 Pal's Dissent, supra note 7 at 21.
17 Ibid., at 700.
18 Ibid., at 85.
19 Ibid., at 83.
20 Ibid., at 106.
21 Ibid., at 107.
22 Ibid., at 78.
23 Ibid., at 79.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., at 95.
26 Ibid., at 621; see also TANAKA, Yuki and FALK, Richard, “The Atomic Bombing, The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and the Shimoda Case: Lessons for Anti-Nuclear Legal Movements” (2009) 7 The Asia-Pacific Journal 1Google Scholar at 3.
27 Pal's Dissent, supra note 7 at 10.
28 Ibid., at 75.
29 Ibid., at 106.
30 Ibid., at 70.
31 Khan, supra note 12 at 26.
32 Pal's Dissent, supra note 7 at 102.
33 Varadarajan, supra note 6 at 799.
34 For a critique on the contemporary influence of Pal's Dissent in Japan, see generally Nariaki NAKAZATO, Neonationalist Mythology in Postwar Japan: Pal's Dissenting Judgment at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (New York: Lexington Books, 2016). See also IENAGA Saburo, “Bias in the Guise of Objectivity” (1977) 11 The Japan Interpreter 271.
35 See comment by Kirsten SELLARS on Mark DRUMBL, “Judge Pal with Jefferson Davis in Tokyo” Opinio Juris (23 March 2019), online: Opinio Juris <https://opiniojuris.org/2019/03/23/judge-pal-with-jefferson-davis-in-tokyo/#comments>.
36 Nakajima TAKESHI, “The Tokyo Tribunal, Justice Pal and the Revisionist Distortion of History” (2011) 9 The Asia-Pacific Journal 1.
37 Varadarajan, supra note 6 at 800. See also Greg P. GUELCHER, “Review of ‘The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II’ by Yuma Totani” (2010) 83 Pacific Affairs 394 at 396.
38 Chatterjee, supra note 5 at 11.
39 Ibid. For a psychoanalytical enquiry of Pal's Dissent, see Ashis NANDY, “The Other Within: The Strange Case of Radhabinod Pal's Judgment on Culpability” (1992) 23 New Literary History 45 at 66.
40 Antony ANGHIE and B.S. CHIMNI, “Third World Approaches to International Law and Individual Responsibility in Internal Conflicts” (2003) 2 Chinese Journal of International Law 77 at 89.
41 See generally B.S. CHIMNI, “Third World Approaches to International Law: A Manifesto” (2006) 8 International Comparative Law Review 3; H. CHRISTIE, “The Poisoned Chalice: Imperial Justice, Moral Relativism, and the Origins of International Criminal Law” (2010) 72 University of Pittsburgh Law Review 361; Frédéric MÉGRET, “Three Dangers for the International Criminal Court: A Critical Look at a Consensual Project” (2001) 12 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 193; Asad G. KIYANI, “Third World Approaches to International Criminal Law” (2015) 109 AJIL Unbound 255 at 256.
42 Birju KOTECHA, “The International Criminal Court's Selectivity and Procedural Justice” (2020) 18 Journal of International Criminal Justice 107.
43 China, Russia, and the US.
44 United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, Official Records of the General Assembly, UN Doc. A/CONF.183/13 (1998), Volume II, at 86 [Official Records]. For a detailed study on India's position on the Rome Statute, see JAMIL, Haris, “Critical Evaluation of India's Position on the Rome Statute” (2017) 57 Indian Journal of International Law 411CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 433.
45 Official Records, supra note 44 at 78, para. 92.
46 Recently, the Appeals Chamber of the ICC authorized the Prosecutor to commence an investigation in Afghanistan after an appeal to reverse the pre-trial chamber decision. Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Decision of 5 March 2020, [2020] I.C.C-02/17.
47 Gerry SIMPSON, “Linear Law: The History of International Criminal Law” in Christine SCHWÖBEL, ed., Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2014), 159 at 173.
48 Recent withdrawal by states such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Burundi, and the attempted withdrawal by South Africa and Gambia is suggestive of a broader diminishing popularity of the ICC among the third-world countries.
49 China, the US, the UK, and the Soviet Union (present-day Russia).
50 Kiyani, supra note 41 at 257.
51 Anghie and Chimni, supra note 40 at 88.
52 Nandy, supra note 39 at 66.
53 KREVER, Tor, “International Criminal Law: An Ideology Critique” (2013) 26 Leiden Journal of International Law 701CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 715. See also Christopher GEVERS, “International Criminal Law and Individualism: An African Perspective” in Christine SCHWÖBEL, ed., Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2014), 221 at 221; Anne ORFORD, “Locating the International: Military and Monetary Interventions after the Cold War” (1997) 38 Harvard International Law Journal 443.
54 Krever, supra note 53.
55 MENON, Parvathi, “Self-Referring to the International Criminal Court: A Continuation of War by Other Means” (2015) 109 AJIL Unbound 260CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 261.
56 Balakrishnan RAJAGOPAL, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003) at 12.
57 Michael HARDT and Antonio NEGRI, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000) at xiii. See also Anghie and Chimni, supra note 40 at 83.
58 B.S. CHIMNI, International Law and World Order: A Critique of Contemporary Approaches, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) at 477; KNOX, Robert, “Marxism, International Law, and Political Strategy” (2009) 22 Leiden Journal of International Law 413CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 433. For a different perspective, see China MIÉVILLE, Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law (Historical Materialism) (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2006).
59 Pal's Dissent, supra note 7 at 18.
60 Chimni, supra note 58 at 523.
61 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998, 2187 U.N.T.S. 90 (entered into force 1 July 2002) [Rome Statute].
62 MARKS, Susan, “International Judicial Activism and the Commodity-Form Theory of International Law” (2007) 18 European Journal of International Law 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 211.
