ARTICLES : Views on Compensation for Conscripted Korean Laborers from Japanese Companies: A Recent Korean Supreme Court Case

On May 24, 2012, the Korean Supreme Court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to compensate damages and unpaid wages to Korean laborers who were forced to do labor for the company during the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945. Theplaintiffs sought (i) compensation for damages for violations of international law and for illegal acts, and (ii) payment of unpaid wages against the defendant, which is a corporation newly established after the Old MHI``s dissolution. Regarding this recent Korean Supreme Court case, this paper has attempted to offer the viewpoint that the legal system of Korea halted during the colonial period over the Korean peninsula due to Japan’s occupation, and this case should be reviewed in light of the demand for justice, rather than legal certainty or reliability, which requires a validated legal system to succeed national authority without any discontinuity.The conclusion to be drawn here is that the Supreme Court need not consider the then Korean law itself, which made this decision unpersuasive and inconsistent with court precedents. It would be more persuasive if the Supreme Court was honest in admitting this case existed beyond the entire Korean legal system, and adopted the aim of attempting to redress the past history between Japan and Korea. Although the Supreme Court’s view is generally well-accepted by Korean society, the important issue is not the compensation issue, but the judgment of illegality in regard to Japan’s occupation as a war of aggression. For further development of the relationship between Japan and Korea, it is more important to share the same awareness by critically examining the past history and to cooperate with each other so that such things do not recur.