How finished business became unfinished: legal, moral and political dimensions of the Class 'B' and 'C' war crimes trials in Asia and the Pacific

Abstract

During their occupation of parts of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific during the Second World War, Japanese soldiers committed many atrocities against the indigenous peoples of the region, against Western civilians and against captured Allied soldiers. These crimes included numerous cases of summary execution, beating, deprivation of food and medicine, and the forcing of women into prostitution, as well as less common instances of cannibalism, medical experimentation on live human subjects and other egregious crimes.