Japan high court denies compensation to Chinese war victims News
Japan high court denies compensation to Chinese war victims

[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Japan [official website, in English] Wednesday dismissed two cases filed by Chinese nationals seeking compensation for Japan's use of biological weapons and the Nanjing Massacre [Wikipedia backgrounders] during the Second Sino-Japanese War [Wikipedia backgrounder] between 1937 and 1945. The high court upheld previous decisions by the Tokyo District Court and the Tokyo High Court which acknowledged the suffering of the 198 plaintiffs but denied compensation claims because the 1972 Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China [text] renounced Chinese claims for war reparations from Japan.

In April, the Supreme Court denied compensation claims [JURIST report] by two Chinese women forced to work as "comfort women" [Amnesty backgrounder; JURIST news archive] and five wartime slave laborers [JURIST report] on similar grounds. Xinhua has more.