Victor's Justice: Unpacking the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal

by Christian Rowbotham

Part 2: The Trial’s Purpose, Defendants, Verdicts, and Legacy

The Tokyo Trial served multiple U.S. objectives during the occupation of Japan, which formally began after Japan’s surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. As General Douglas MacArthur stepped ashore as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), the trial became a central instrument of his broader mission.

As part of the U.S. goals of the occupation of Japan, the Tokyo Trial aimed not only to demilitarise Japan, promote democracy, and punish Japanese leaders individually for war crimes and starting a war of aggression, but also to present Allied actions in the best possible light. 
As Chief Prosecutor Joseph Keenan stated, the trial’s “foremost service” was to “establish the facts authentically, particularly with the Japanese people,” who had little knowledge of the war that they were fighting, reeducate them, and convince them that the Japanese leaders misled them to go to war. This reveals an underlying goal: to separate the “innocent” Japanese population from their “criminal, militaristic” rulers. In this way, the prosecution’s case functioned as a form of war guilt propaganda, persistently and subtly imposed on the Japanese public. For the United States, punishing individuals responsible for the war and the alleged war crimes was regarded as necessary for laying the foundation for a new, cooperative relationship with a reformed Japan.
The 28 high-ranking Japanese leaders: primarily former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, and senior military commanders faced indictment as Class A war criminals.
Prominent defendants included:

• Hideki Tōjō (former Prime Minister and War Minister)
• Kōki Hirota (former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister)
• Iwane Matsui (general linked to the Nanjing Massacre)
• Akira Mutō
• Kenji Doihara
• Seishirō Itagaki
• Heitarō Kimura

(Notably, other figures like Nobusuke Kishi—a wartime cabinet member involved in Manchukuo's economic exploitation and forced labor—were detained for years as suspected Class A war criminals in Sugamo Prison but released without trial in 1948, as U.S. policy shifted toward rebuilding Japan against communism. Kishi later became Prime Minister in 1957.)

Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō and minister of commerce and industry Nobusuke Kishi. October, 1943. Source: Wiki

Individually or as members of organizations, the defendants were charged with a total of fifty-five offenses, categorized under three headings: Crimes against Peace, Conventional War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity. These categories differ based on the ethical context of warfare. Crimes against peace concern the morality of going to war, specifically the planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a declared or undeclared war of aggression, in violation of international law or treaty, or taking part in a common plan or conspiracy to achieve any of these acts. Conventional war crimes involve violations of the laws and customs governing conduct during war, such as the mistreatment of prisoners or civilians. The provision of war crimes is firmly grounded in international law, including the Hague Conventions, to which both Germany and Japan were signatories, as well as in established customary international law. Crimes against humanity, however, can occur in both wartime and peacetime, and refer to widespread or systematic atrocities such as murder, enslavement, or persecution.
After hearing testimony from over 400 witnesses and reviewing around 4,000 pieces of documentary evidence, the tribunal delivered its majority judgment, at times narrowly, with votes as close as six to five. All defendants were found guilty of at least one of the following: participating in a conspiracy to wage wars of aggression (crimes against peace), and/or ordering, authorizing, permitting, or failing to prevent conventional war crimes.
In the end, the only charges for which the defendants were not found guilty were crimes against humanity. Seven individuals were sentenced to death by hanging, sixteen received life imprisonment, one was sentenced to twenty years, and another to seven years in prison. The cases of three defendants were dismissed, two due to their deaths during the trial, and one due to mental incompetence.
Both the IMTFE and the IMT faced criticism of victor's justice for the same reasons. Both tribunals were established by the victorious Allies for the defeated Axis powers, with judges appointed exclusively from among the victors, which raised serious concerns about judicial impartiality and potential bias. However, based on existing literature, it can be argued that the Tokyo Trial received harsher criticism than the Nuremberg trials.
For its critics, the Tokyo Tribunal was less about justice and more about retribution, as “the victors judged the vanquished.” The perception of victor’s justice has likely fostered a lasting sense of resentment among the Japanese and contributed to a national narrative in which Japan saw itself as a victim rather than an aggressor in World War II, especially in light of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For much of the postwar period, the Japanese government repeatedly revised school textbooks to downplay or omit Imperial Japan’s actions during World War II. As late as 1990, top officials in Tokyo continued to claim that reports of the Nanjing Massacre were fabricated. It was only after the death of Emperor Hirohito on January 7, 1989, that the government began to more openly acknowledge and confront its wartime past. The Japanese government has continued to refuse compensation to many of those it victimized during the war, despite public opinion polls indicating that a majority of Japanese citizens support such reparations. In contrast, Germany is expected to have paid nearly $60 billion by 2005 to its wartime victims and their families. While Germany opened its wartime archives to researchers and investigators, the Japanese government not only refuses to do the same but has also denied the existence of certain records, particularly those related to military sexual slavery (the so-called "comfort women") and the biochemical warfare experiments conducted by the infamous Unit 731. 
These differences raise fundamental questions we’ll explore in the rest of the series: Was the Tokyo Tribunal legitimate? Is the “victor’s justice” critique justified? And why has Tokyo been judged more harshly than Nuremberg, despite sharing the same charter and many of the same flaws?
Further Reading for Part 2

• John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (1999) – Essential on the occupation, MacArthur’s role, and reeducation efforts.
  
• Tim Maga, Judgment at Tokyo: The Japanese War Crimes Trials (2001) – Clear overview of defendants, charges, and verdicts.
  
• Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (2000) – Context on leadership accountability and postwar narratives.
  
• Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (2008) – Detailed on trial structure and outcomes.​
  

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