Culture | The scales of injustice

Can trials heal the wounds of war?

A new book looks at the legacy of Japan’s war-crimes tribunal

Hideki Tojo, former Japanese General Premier and War Minister, takes the stand for the first time during the International Tribunal trials, Tokyo, Japan. — Image: Getty Images

Nov 16th 2023

THE WORLD IS still haunted by 20th-century crimes so grave that any attempt to bring the perpetrators to justice seems feeble. The trials at Nuremberg in 1945-46 did little to salve wounds left by the Holocaust. And the Tokyo trials of alleged Japanese war criminals, which lasted two and a half years from 1946-48, have not stopped outpourings of anger across Asia whenever, for example, a senior Japanese politician visits Yasukuni, a Tokyo shrine to the war-dead, including convicted war criminals.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The scales of injustice”