On May 14, 1946, ten days after the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (popularly known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal), Captain George Furness, a member of the defense counsel, cast serious doubt on the fairness of the Tribunal conducted by the victorious nations in World War II:

After a decade of combat, casualties, massive displacement, persisting violence, enhanced sectarian tension and violence between Shi’ias and Sunnis, periodic suicide bombings, and autocratic governance, a negative assessment of the Iraq War as a strategic move by the United States, United Kingdom, and a few of their secondary allies, including Japan, seems unavoidable. Not only the regionally destabilizing outcome, including the blowback effect of perversely adding weight to Iran's overall diplomatic influence, but the reputational costs in the Middle East associated with an imprudent, destructive, and failed military intervention make the Iraq War the worst American foreign policy disaster since its defeat in Vietnam in the 1970s. Such geopolitical accounting does not even consider the damage to the United Nations and international law arising from an aggressive use of force in flagrant violation of the UN Charter, embarked upon without any legitimating authorization as to the use of force by the Security Council. The UN hurt its image when it failed to reinforce its refusal to grant authorization to the United States and its coalition. This was compounded by the fact that the UN lent support to the unlawful American-led occupation that followed. In other words, not only was the Iraq War a disaster from the perspective of American and British foreign policy and the peace and stability of the Middle East region, but it was also a serious setback for international law, the UN, and world order.

Ōishi Matashichi, a fisherman aboard The Lucky Dragon #5, in a new book, tells the story of the 1954 Bikini Hydrogen bomb Bravo test that transformed his life and touched off the world anti-nuclear movement. The Asia-Pacific Journal is pleased to offer excerpts from Richard Falk's foreword and Ōishi's riveting account of the bomb which exploded with a force 1,000 times that of the Hiroshima Bomb and left its imprint on the lives of the surviving members of the crew and our understanding of nuclear weapons and US atomic diplomacy.

Ever since German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted, convicted, and punished after World War II at Nuremberg and Tokyo, there has been a wide split at the core of the global effort to impose criminal accountability on those who commit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes on behalf of a sovereign state. The law is always expected to push toward consistency of application as a condition of its legitimacy. In the setting of international criminality the greatest danger to widely shared values is posed by those with the greatest power and wealth, and it is precisely these leaders that are least likely to be held responsible or to feel threatened by the prospect of being charged with international crimes. The global pattern of enforcement to date has been one in which the comparatively petty criminals are increasingly held to account while the Mafia bosses escape almost altogether from existing mechanisms of international accountability. Such double standards are too rarely acknowledged in discussions of international criminal law nor are their corrosive effects considered, but once understood, it becomes clear that this pattern seriously compromises the claim that international criminal law is capable of achieving global justice.

Ever since German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted, convicted, and punished after World War II at Nuremberg and Tokyo, there has been a wide split at the core of the global effort to impose criminal accountability on those who commit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes on behalf of a sovereign state. The law is always expected to push toward consistency of application as a condition of its legitimacy. In the setting of international criminality the greatest danger to widely shared values is posed by those with the greatest power and wealth, and it is precisely these leaders that are least likely to be held responsible or to feel threatened by the prospect of being charged with international crimes. The global pattern of enforcement to date has been one in which the comparatively petty criminals are increasingly held to account while the Mafia bosses escape almost altogether from existing mechanisms of international accountability. Such double standards are too rarely acknowledged in discussions of international criminal law nor are their corrosive effects considered, but once understood, it becomes clear that this pattern seriously compromises the claim that international criminal law is capable of achieving global justice.

There are mounting hopes that Barack Obama will use the occasion of the Group of 7 meeting in Japan in May to visit Hiroshima, and become the first American president to do so. It is remarkable that it required a wait of over 60 years until John Kerry became the first high American official to make such a visit, which he termed ‘gut-wrenching,‘ while at the same time purposely refraining from offering any kind of apology to the Japanese people for one of the worse acts of state terror against a defenseless population in all of human history. Let's hope that Obama goes, and displays more remorse than Kerry who at least deserves some credit for paving the way. The contrast between the many pilgrimages of homage by Western leaders, including those of Germany, to Auschwitz and other notorious death camps, and the absence of comparable pilgrimages to Hiroshima and Nagasaki underscores the difference between winning and losing a major war. This contrast cannot be properly accounted for by insisting on a hierarchy of evils that the Holocaust dominates.

On 7 July 2017 122 countries at the UN voted to approve the text of a proposed international treaty entitled ‘Draft Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.‘ This article assesses the significance of broad international support for the draft treaty, the opposition to it on the part of all nine nuclear powers, and its possible contribution to nuclear disarmament.

This article provides a critical discussion of Okinawa's role in serving American and Japanese strategic interests. Since the end of World War II Okinawa has been a mostly unhappy host of American military bases, and the issue has been prominent at times on the agenda of the Japanese peace movement. The interplay of overseas bases and U.S. foreign policy is a crucial and often hidden dimension of the global projection of American power, which gives rise to friction with and opposition from the peoples living in the vicinity of the bases. This has certainly been the case in relation to Okinawa. This essay offers reflections on thisunderlying reality, as well as the linkage between the network of foreign military bases and the emergence of the first global state in history, a new political phenomenon that distinguishes it from ‘empires’ of the past.

Leaf surface morphology and physical characteristics of herbicide deposits on leaf surfaces can influence herbicide performance. Leaf surface topography, the degree and type of epicuticular wax formation, and the presence, type, and distribution of trichomes all influence the distribution of a given herbicide formulation sprayed onto a leaf surface. Depressions above anticlinal cell walls accumulate herbicide, thus lessening uniform distribution. As the amount of particulate wax increases, the size of individual spray drop deposits on the leaf decreases, thus resulting in reduced coverage. In many instances the presence of trichomes reduces optimal epidermal coverage by intercepting spray drops before they reach the epidermal surface. Adjuvants reduce the adverse influence of leaf topography, epicuticular wax, and trichomes on herbicide distribution, but their use usually does not yield an even coating over the entire leaf surface. Many herbicides, in pure form, are solids (i.e., crystals) rather than liquids. For most applications, herbicides are dissolved, dispersed, or emulsified in a water-based spray solution. After spraying, water and any solvents evaporate from the leaf surface and herbicides often return to their solid crystalline form. In the few cases that have been studied, less herbicide is absorbed when present on the leaf surface as a solid rather than as a liquid. In many instances, greater effectiveness of a postemergence herbicide may be obtained if attention is given to optimizing the distribution and physical form on sprayed leaf surfaces.

The leaves of tall morningglory, giant duckweed, and common purslane were treated with nine surfactants at a concentration of 0.1% and examined after 24 hr using cryo-scanning electron microscopy for phytotoxicity as evidenced by tissue damage and epicuticular wax morphology changes. In some instances, tissue damage could be discerned; however, the effects of a particular surfactant were not uniform across the three species. Morphological alteration of epicuticular waxes was not observed. Gas chromatographic analyses of the epicuticular waxes of the species used in the study reveal component differences and may, in part, explain the lack of uniform response across species for a particular surfactant.

An accurate knowledge of the thermal properties of firn and ice within a glacier is essential for any reliable mathematical model of heat transfer. This paper considers the problem of determining the thermal properties of firn at Dome C, Antarctica, for use in such a model.

First, the difficulties in accurately determining thermal properties are discussed. Then a physical experiment which can be performed under field conditions, but which will yield a well-posed mathematical problem for determining the unknown properties, is presented. Next, two different numerical techniques for solving the mathematical problem are discussed. Finally, some numerical approximations and error estimates are presented for the results of applying our numerical procedure to data from Dome C. Although insufficient data were obtained to test our methods fully, we have established a measurement procedure and a method of analysis which appear to be promising.