The Nuremberg and Tokyo IMT Trials: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg (IMTN), was the most important international criminal trial in history. The same cannot be said for its sister tribunal, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) or Tokyo trial, which was plagued by legal, linguistic, and procedural missteps so serious that they have raised questions about the fairness of the proceedings, which some see as a prime example of “victor’s justice” gone awry. While the IMTN certainly had its flaws, particularly when it came to questions of precedents in international law as legal anchors for its four charges, these were minor compared to the flaws of the Tokyo trial, which, though theoretically anchored in Nuremberg precedent, was handicapped from the beginning by the failure to indict the central conspiratorial figure in Japan, emperor Elirohito. In addition, the trial’s chief prosecutor and the court’s president were flawed jurists who provided inadequate leadership throughout the lengthy trial. This, coupled with some of the same translation and evidentiary issues that haunted the IMTN tribunal, set the stage for severe criticism of the trial, from not only a larger international audience but even some of the court’s judges.