[ad_1]
President Moon Jae-in is having a telephone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at the Blue House on September 24 last year. Provided by the Blue House
The government’s concern was deepened by the bad news in Korean-Japanese relations due to the subsequent judicial outbreak. On the 8th, the Seoul Central District Law recognized for the first time the responsibility of the Japanese government to compensate the damages and handed over the hands of 12 female solace victims. Historically, it is a fair trial, but diplomatically, it poses a challenge to the government.
The turning point when relations between Korea and Japan have cooled down recently was the Supreme Court’s decision to compensate for the forced mobilization in October 2018. After going through the nervous wars of the destruction of the Military Information Protection Agreement Korea-Japan (GSOMIA, Jisomia), Japan’s retaliatory export restrictions and boycott of Japanese products, the storm began to blow slowly in the era of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
However, after two years, the judiciary again threw a “big variable” on the relationship between Korea and Japan. Prime Minister Suga immediately rebelled and said, “We can never accept the judgment of the comfort women.”
The Blue House did not stand up that day and the Foreign Ministry said: “The government respects the court’s ruling. The impact of this ruling on diplomatic relations is carefully reviewed to ensure that future-oriented cooperation between the two countries can continue. ” “I will,” the spokesperson commented.
Despite the fact that the court said in the judgment of 8 that “the right of victims to claim damages was not applied in the 2015 comfort women agreement,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added the phrase “recalling that the The 2015 agreement between the Korean government and Japan and Korean comfort women is an official agreement. ” It shows the depth of the government’s concerns.
Busts of comfort women victims are erected at Nanum’s home in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do, on the afternoon of the 8th, when victory is rendered in the first trial of a damages claim filed against the Japanese government . Newsis
“The hot wind that disappeared in an instant … worse than the failure by forced mobilization”
The defendants in the lawsuit for the victims of forced mobilization were Japanese companies such as Nippon Steel (formerly Shinil Iron Co., Ltd.) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, so there was room for the two governments to try to find solutions. The opponent of this women’s comfort suit is the Japanese government. Japan did not respond to the claim under the principle of “ state immunity (sovereignty) ” under international law that “ the state does not become a defendant in the trials of other countries ”, but the court found that the Universal human rights are above the principle of sovereign immunity.
Lee Won-deok, a professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at Kookmin University, said on the 8th: “Today’s ruling is more than a forced mobilization ruling, and Japan will rebel and create a greater impact on relations between Korea. and Japan “. It would be a great concern if there is no action. “
After Suga’s cabinet inauguration last year, the South Korean government withdrew its anti-Japanese stance and made efforts to improve relations between Korea and Japan. President Moon Jae-in publicly greeted “Japan’s Prime Minister Suga especially” at the ASEAN + 3 summit in November last year. It was all a gesture of reconciliation.
As long as the Korean judiciary has touched the “government”, it is very likely that Japan will come out stronger than it was when it was tried for forced mobilization. “If Korea does not solve the problem of compensating for forced mobilization, it could lead to high intensity economic retaliation, such as financial sanctions,” both within and outside the Japanese government. Japan, which withdrew from the appeal, is unlikely to act immediately, but the confidence of the two countries has once again been fatal.
The director of the National Intelligence Service, Park Ji-won, is listening to journalists’ questions after interviewing Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at the Japanese Prime Minister’s residence on the afternoon of November 10 last year. Tokyo Kyodo = Yonhap News
“Diplomacy that the Judiciary is repeatedly shaking … neither this nor that”
There is also concern about the consequent excessive invasion by the judiciary of the diplomatic sphere of government. Jin Chang-soo, director of the Japan Research Center at the Sejong Institute, said: “There is clearly a field of diplomacy, but I am not sure whether it is possible to judge (past matters) only in the judicial field without recognizing sovereign exemption under international law “. In addition, he asked: “If the American judiciary issues a ruling against the law against the spread of the war against North Korea, which some American legislators oppose, should we follow it?
The Korean government cannot intervene in the decision of the judiciary due to the principle of separation of powers and the trauma of judicial non-danán, but Japan hopes that the Korean government will play a role. The more the judicial variable increases, the more complicated is the relationship between the two countries.
Some say the government should have prepared more actively for the results of the ruling. The Moon Jae-in administration practically neglected the ‘comfort women agreement’ between Korea and Japan, which was reached in 2015 during the Park Geun-hye administration. Professor Won-deok Lee said: “The current government only assessed from the perspective of a third party that the comfort women agreement was wrong at the time, but it is regrettable that they did not make much effort to follow up.”
Seungim Jeong reporter [email protected]
Subscribe to the Hankook Ilbo News Naver channel
Balance to see the world, the Hankook Ilbo Copyright © Hankookilbo
[ad_2]
