South Korea’s top court orders a 3rd Japanese company to compensate workers for forced labour

SEOUL, (AP):

South Korea’s top court on Thursday ordered a third Japanese company to compensate some of its former wartime Korean employees for forced labour, the second such ruling in a week.

The South Korean verdict drew quick rebukes from Japan, but observers say it’s unlikely the ruling will cause any major negative impacts on bilateral relations, as both governments are serious about improving their cooperation in the face of shared challenges like North Korea’s nuclear programme and China’s assertiveness.

The Supreme Court ruled that shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen Corp and heavy equipment manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries must give between 50 million won (about $39,000) and 150 million won (about $116,000) in compensation to each of the 17 Korean plaintiffs — one of whom is a surviving ex-worker, and the rest, bereaved relatives.

Mitsubishi and another Japanese company, Nippon Steel, were previously given a similar compensation order by the South Korean court, but it was the first such ruling for Hitachi.

Among the plaintiffs are the surviving victim who suffered a serious burn and the bereaved family of a worker who died during an earthquake in Japan in 1944, when they worked for Mitsubishi’s aircraft-making factory in Nagoya. Others include the relatives of late Mitsubishi workers who were injured during the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and another wartime event, according to a court press release.

A ruling in favour of Korean plaintiffs was widely expected because the Supreme Court, in two separate rulings in 2018, ordered Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel to compensate some of their former Korean employees, saying they were forced to provide their labour to the companies when the Korean Peninsula was colonised by Japan from 1910 to 1945.

On December 21, the top court again ordered Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel to provide compensation to other Koreans for similar colonial-era forced labour.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry responded by summoning a senior South Korean diplomat in Japan to lodge a formal protest. In the meeting, Hiroyuki Namazu, director-general for the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, called the latest South Korean ruling “extremely regrettable and absolutely unacceptable”, according to the Japanese ministry.

Namazu maintained Japan’s long-held position that all compensation issues between the two countries were settled when they normalised ties in 1965.

The South Korean rulings in 2018 and this month argued that the treaty can’t prevent individuals from seeking compensation for forced labour because Japanese companies’ uses of such labourers were “acts of illegality against humanity” that were linked to Tokyo’s illegal colonial occupation and its war of aggression.