South Korean court rejects ‘comfort women’ lawsuit against Japan

South Korean women forced into sex slavery during Japan’s colonial rule have vowed to continue their fight for compensation from Tokyo despite a Seoul court throwing out their latest legal challenge.

The central district court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of former sex slaves, known as comfort women, against the Japanese government because of sovereign immunity, a legal principle that means states cannot usually be sued in the courts of another nation.

The decision marked a stark change from January, when the same court ordered Japan to pay Won100m ($91,000) to 12 victims. At the time, the South Korean judiciary said no compensation had ever been made for the “unimaginable mental and physical pain”.

Following the latest judgment, groups representing the comfort women said they would “not be dejected” and planned to “continue our legal struggles” through the South Korean courts.

“History will record today’s ruling in shame, for turning a blind eye to the victims’ desperate appeals and abandoning its responsibilities as the ‘last bastion of human rights’,” the groups said.

“Today’s ruling not only limited victims’ rights to access justice but also ignores the trend of international law to respect human rights.”

Legal proceedings brought by comfort women as well as victims of wartime forced labour have reignited tensions between Seoul and Tokyo over Japan’s brutal occupation of the Korean peninsula.

The bitter dispute has threatened to undermine efforts by US president Joe Biden to forge greater co-operation among Washington’s Asian allies in response to China’s assertive foreign policies, putting pressure on Tokyo and Seoul to reconcile. 

Yoshihide Suga, the Japanese prime minister, visited Biden at the White House last week, becoming the first foreign leader to meet the US president in person since his inauguration. Suga said that Japan and the US opposed coercion or force in the South and East China Seas.

Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president, has previously promised not to intervene with the country’s judiciary, limiting diplomatic routes for resolving the dispute.

Katsunobu Kato, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, said: “It’s different to the ruling of the Seoul district court on January 8 but we need to scrutinise the contents carefully, so we want to refrain from commenting at the present time.”

Kato said South Korea “should take measures to correct its violations of international law”.

The comfort women rulings are separate to Korean court decisions to award damages against private Japanese companies for forced labour during the second world war.

Japan maintains that those rulings violate a 1965 treaty in which the two sides agreed to settle all claims “completely and finally”.

Amnesty International, the human rights group, said the court’s decision to overturn January’s landmark decision was a “major disappointment” and failed to deliver justice.

“More than 70 years have passed since the end of World War II, and we cannot overstate the urgency for the Japanese government to stop depriving these survivors of their rights to full reparation and to provide an effective remedy within their lifetimes,” Amnesty researcher Arnold Fang said.