Radha Binod Pal
Encyclopedia
Justice
Radha Binod Pal (27 January 1886 – 10 January 1967) was an India
n jurist. He was the Indian member appointed to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
's trials of Japanese war crimes committed during the second World War. Among all the judges of the tribunal, he was the only one who submitted a judgment which insisted all defendants were not guilty. The Yasukuni Shrine
and the Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine
has monuments specially dedicated to Justice Pal.
in India (present day Bangladesh
).
He studied mathematics and constitutional law at Presidency College, Kolkata
, and the Law College of the University of Calcutta
. He worked as professor at the Law College of the University of Calcutta
from 1923 till 1936. He became a judge of Calcutta High Court
in 1941 and Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta
in 1944. The Indian government installed him as a legal adviser in 1927 and dispatched him to the Tokyo Trials in 1946. He delivered one of the three dissenting opinions of the Tribunal. He found all the defendants not guilty of Class A war crimes, even though he condemned the Japanese war-time conduct as "devilish and fiendish". He was highly critical of conspiracy and he was unable to apply such a new crime as waging aggressive wars and committing crimes against peace and humanity—Class A war crimes created by the Allies after the war—ex post facto. His reasoning influenced the dissenting opinions of the judges for the Netherlands and France.
Following the war-crimes trials, he was elected to the United Nations
' International Law Commission
, where he served from 1952 to 1966.
He is the father of renowned barrister, late Pranab Kumar Pal and the father-in-law of renowned lawyer Dr. Debi Prasad Pal
.
is still overwhelming that atrocities were perpetrated by the members of the Japanese armed forces against the civilian population of some of the territories occupied by them as also against the prisoners of war', he produced a judgment questioning the legitimacy of the tribunal
and its rulings. He held the view that the legitimacy of the tribunal was suspect and questionable as the spirit of retribution, and not impartial justice, was the underlying criterion for passing the judgment.
He concluded:
Pal never intended to offer a juridical argument on whether a sentence of not guilty would have been a correct one. However he argued that the United States had clearly provoked the war with Japan and expected Japan to act (Zinn, 411).
Pal believed that the Tokyo Trial was incapable of passing a just sentence. He considered the trial to be unjust and unreasonable trial, contributing nothing to lasting peace. According to his view, the trial was the judgment of the vanquished by the victors; such proceedings, even if clothed in the garb of law, resulted in nothing but the satisfaction of the desire for vengeance. In his lone dissent, he refers to the trial as a "sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge." According to Norimitsu Onishi
, While he fully acknowledged Japan’s war atrocities — including the Nanjing massacre
— he said they were covered in the Class B and Class C trials.
Further, he believed that the exclusion of Western colonialism and the use of the atom bomb by the United States from the list of crimes, and judges from the vanquished nations on the bench, signified the "failure of the Tribunal to provide anything other than the opportunity for the victors to retaliate." In this he was not alone among Indian jurists of the time, one prominent Calcutta barrister writing that the Tribunal was little more than "a sword in a wig". Fear of American nuclear power was an international phenomenon following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Judge Pal's typewritten book-length opposition to the decision was formally prohibited from publication by the Occupation forces and was released in 1952 after the occupation ended and a treaty recognizing the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trials was signed by Japan. Pal's publication had also been prohibited in Great Britain, and it remained unpublished in the United States as well. However, a portion of his "original" judgment and copies of the original text in modern editions are available for sale online.
The American occupation of Japan ended in 1952, after Tokyo signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty and accepted the Tokyo trials' verdict. The end of the occupation also lifted a ban on the publication of Judge Pal’s 1,235-page dissent, which Japanese nationalists brandished and began using as the basis of their argument that the Tokyo trials were a sham by selectively choosing passages from his dissent. Even though Pal believed that the Japanese committed atrocities during World War II, his dissenting opinion has been used by Japanese nationalists as evidence that the crimes had never happened.
was surprising and dismissed as a political ploy by his contemporaries. Pal was also an admirer of the Indian National Army
(INA), an Indian army which collaborated with Japan to fight against Great Britain and liberate India from British colonization. Pal wrote that the Tokyo Trials were an exercise in victor's justice and that the Allies were equally culpable in acts such as strategic bombings of civilian targets. In 1966, Pal visited Japan and said that he had admired Japan from a young age for being the only Asian nation that "stood up against the West." Regardless of his political opinion, his legal reasoning was a landmark in international law and should more or less balance the charge that his dissent was politically charged.
. Pal is revered by Japanese nationalists and a monument dedicated to him stands on the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine
, seen as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism. The monument was erected after Pal's death.
Justice Pal's dissent is frequently mentioned by Indian diplomats and political leaders in the context of Indo-Japanese friendship and solidarity. For example, on 29 April 2005 Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh
referred to it as follows, in his remarks at a banquet in New Delhi
in honor of the visiting Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi
:
On December 14, 2006, Singh, made a speech in the Japanese Diet
. He stated:
On August 23, 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
met with Pal's son, Prasanta, in Kolkata, during his day long visit to the city. Prasanta Pal, now an octogenarian, presented prime minister Abe with four photographs of his father, of which two photographs were of Radhabinod Pal with Nobusuke Kishi
. They chatted for half an hour at a city hotel.
"Even contemporary historians could think that 'as for the present war, the Principality of Monaco, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, would have taken up arms against the United States on receipt of such a note (Hull note
) as the State Department sent the Japanese Government on the eve of Pearl Harbor.'"
"When time shall have softened passion and prejudice, when Reason shall have stripped the mask from misrepresentation, then Justice, holding evenly her scales, will require much of past censure and praise to change places." (A conclusion of the dissent. Pal here is quoting Jefferson Davis
)
"I might mention in this connection that even the published accounts of Nanking 'rape' could not be accepted by the world without some suspicion of exaggeration... Referring to the same incident, Sir Charles Addis on that occasion could say: 'Between two countries at war there was always a danger that one or other of the combatants would seek to turn public opinion in his favour by resort to a propaganda in which incidents, inseparable alas from all hostilities, were magnified and distorted for the express purpose of inflaming prejudice and passion and obscuring the real issues of the conflict.'" (page 606 of his Dissent)
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
Radha Binod Pal (27 January 1886 – 10 January 1967) was an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n jurist. He was the Indian member appointed to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East
International Military Tribunal for the Far East
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East , also known as the Tokyo Trials, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, or simply the Tribunal, was convened on April 29, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of crimes: "Class A" crimes were reserved for those who...
's trials of Japanese war crimes committed during the second World War. Among all the judges of the tribunal, he was the only one who submitted a judgment which insisted all defendants were not guilty. The Yasukuni Shrine
Yasukuni Shrine
is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is dedicated to the soldiers and others who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan. Currently, its Symbolic Registry of Divinities lists the names of over 2,466,000 enshrined men and women whose lives were dedicated to the service of...
and the Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine
Kyoto Ryozen Gokoku Shrine
The is a Shinto Shrine located in Kyoto, Japan. It honors the heroes of Japan, especially from the period of the Bakumatsu period and the Meiji Restoration.The Ryozen Museum of History is next to this shrine.-External links:...
has monuments specially dedicated to Justice Pal.
Career
Justice Radhabinod Pal was born in 1886 in a small village called 'Salimpur' under 'Taragunia' union of 'Daulatpur' Upazilla of Kushtia DistrictKushtia District
Kushtia, Kushtia district or Kushtia Zila is a district in the Khulna administrative division of western Bangladesh. Kushtia has existed as a separate district since the partition of India. Prior to that, Kushtia was a part of Nadia District under Bengal Province of British India. Kushtia was home...
in India (present day Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
).
He studied mathematics and constitutional law at Presidency College, Kolkata
Presidency College, Kolkata
Presidency University, Kolkata, formerly Hindu College and Presidency College, is a unitary, state aided university, located in Kolkata, West Bengal. and one of the premier institutes of learning of liberal arts and sciences in India. In 2002 it was ranked number one by the weekly news magazine...
, and the Law College of the University of Calcutta
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
. He worked as professor at the Law College of the University of Calcutta
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
from 1923 till 1936. He became a judge of Calcutta High Court
Calcutta High Court
The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It was established as the High Court of Judicature at Fort William on 1 July 1862 under the High Courts Act, 1861. It has jurisdiction over the state of West Bengal and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The High Court...
in 1941 and Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta
University of Calcutta
The University of Calcutta is a public university located in the city of Kolkata , India, founded on 24 January 1857...
in 1944. The Indian government installed him as a legal adviser in 1927 and dispatched him to the Tokyo Trials in 1946. He delivered one of the three dissenting opinions of the Tribunal. He found all the defendants not guilty of Class A war crimes, even though he condemned the Japanese war-time conduct as "devilish and fiendish". He was highly critical of conspiracy and he was unable to apply such a new crime as waging aggressive wars and committing crimes against peace and humanity—Class A war crimes created by the Allies after the war—ex post facto. His reasoning influenced the dissenting opinions of the judges for the Netherlands and France.
Following the war-crimes trials, he was elected to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
' International Law Commission
International Law Commission
The International Law Commission was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 for the "promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification."It holds an annual session at the United Nations Office at Geneva....
, where he served from 1952 to 1966.
He is the father of renowned barrister, late Pranab Kumar Pal and the father-in-law of renowned lawyer Dr. Debi Prasad Pal
Debi Prasad Pal
Debi Prasad Pal is a Senior Advocate practicing in the Supreme Court of India and High Courts of India. He is a former Minister of State for Finance, a former Judge of Calcutta High Court and a three-time former Member of Parliament in Lok Sabha....
.
War Crimes Trial Dissent
While finding that 'the evidenceEvidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
is still overwhelming that atrocities were perpetrated by the members of the Japanese armed forces against the civilian population of some of the territories occupied by them as also against the prisoners of war', he produced a judgment questioning the legitimacy of the tribunal
Tribunal
A tribunal in the general sense is any person or institution with the authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title....
and its rulings. He held the view that the legitimacy of the tribunal was suspect and questionable as the spirit of retribution, and not impartial justice, was the underlying criterion for passing the judgment.
He concluded:
- "I would hold that every one of the accused must be found not guilty of every one of the charges in the indictment and should be acquitted on all those charges."
Pal never intended to offer a juridical argument on whether a sentence of not guilty would have been a correct one. However he argued that the United States had clearly provoked the war with Japan and expected Japan to act (Zinn, 411).
Pal believed that the Tokyo Trial was incapable of passing a just sentence. He considered the trial to be unjust and unreasonable trial, contributing nothing to lasting peace. According to his view, the trial was the judgment of the vanquished by the victors; such proceedings, even if clothed in the garb of law, resulted in nothing but the satisfaction of the desire for vengeance. In his lone dissent, he refers to the trial as a "sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge." According to Norimitsu Onishi
Norimitsu Onishi
is a Japanese Canadian journalist. He currently heads the Southeast Asia bureau of the New York Times.-Career:Onishi was born in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. At the age of four, Onishi and his family immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada...
, While he fully acknowledged Japan’s war atrocities — including the Nanjing massacre
Nanking Massacre
The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a mass murder, genocide and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing , the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second...
— he said they were covered in the Class B and Class C trials.
Further, he believed that the exclusion of Western colonialism and the use of the atom bomb by the United States from the list of crimes, and judges from the vanquished nations on the bench, signified the "failure of the Tribunal to provide anything other than the opportunity for the victors to retaliate." In this he was not alone among Indian jurists of the time, one prominent Calcutta barrister writing that the Tribunal was little more than "a sword in a wig". Fear of American nuclear power was an international phenomenon following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Judge Pal's typewritten book-length opposition to the decision was formally prohibited from publication by the Occupation forces and was released in 1952 after the occupation ended and a treaty recognizing the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trials was signed by Japan. Pal's publication had also been prohibited in Great Britain, and it remained unpublished in the United States as well. However, a portion of his "original" judgment and copies of the original text in modern editions are available for sale online.
The American occupation of Japan ended in 1952, after Tokyo signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty and accepted the Tokyo trials' verdict. The end of the occupation also lifted a ban on the publication of Judge Pal’s 1,235-page dissent, which Japanese nationalists brandished and began using as the basis of their argument that the Tokyo trials were a sham by selectively choosing passages from his dissent. Even though Pal believed that the Japanese committed atrocities during World War II, his dissenting opinion has been used by Japanese nationalists as evidence that the crimes had never happened.
Political background
Pal's lone dissenting opinion that Japan did not wage an aggressive, therefore illegal, war and its leaders cannot be prosecuted as war criminalsJapanese war crimes
Japanese war crimes occurred during the period of Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Some of the incidents have also been described as an Asian Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities...
was surprising and dismissed as a political ploy by his contemporaries. Pal was also an admirer of the Indian National Army
Indian National Army
The Indian National Army or Azad Hind Fauj was an armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II. The aim of the army was to overthrow the British Raj in colonial India, with Japanese assistance...
(INA), an Indian army which collaborated with Japan to fight against Great Britain and liberate India from British colonization. Pal wrote that the Tokyo Trials were an exercise in victor's justice and that the Allies were equally culpable in acts such as strategic bombings of civilian targets. In 1966, Pal visited Japan and said that he had admired Japan from a young age for being the only Asian nation that "stood up against the West." Regardless of his political opinion, his legal reasoning was a landmark in international law and should more or less balance the charge that his dissent was politically charged.
Significance in Indo-Japanese relations
In 1966, the Emperor of Japan conferred upon Pal the First Class of the Order of the Sacred TreasureOrder of the Sacred Treasure
The is a Japanese Order, established on January 4, 1888 by Emperor Meiji of Japan as the Order of Meiji. It is awarded in eight classes . It is generally awarded for long and/or meritorious service and considered to be the lowest of the Japanese orders of merit...
. Pal is revered by Japanese nationalists and a monument dedicated to him stands on the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine
Yasukuni Shrine
is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is dedicated to the soldiers and others who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan. Currently, its Symbolic Registry of Divinities lists the names of over 2,466,000 enshrined men and women whose lives were dedicated to the service of...
, seen as a symbol of Japan's wartime militarism. The monument was erected after Pal's death.
Justice Pal's dissent is frequently mentioned by Indian diplomats and political leaders in the context of Indo-Japanese friendship and solidarity. For example, on 29 April 2005 Prime Minister
Prime Minister of India
The Prime Minister of India , as addressed to in the Constitution of India — Prime Minister for the Union, is the chief of government, head of the Council of Ministers and the leader of the majority party in parliament...
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh
Manmohan Singh is the 13th and current Prime Minister of India. He is the only Prime Minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to return to power after completing a full five-year term. A Sikh, he is the first non-Hindu to occupy the office. Singh is also the 7th Prime Minister belonging to the Indian...
referred to it as follows, in his remarks at a banquet in New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
in honor of the visiting Japanese Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Japan
The is the head of government of Japan. He is appointed by the Emperor of Japan after being designated by the Diet from among its members, and must enjoy the confidence of the House of Representatives to remain in office...
Junichiro Koizumi
Junichiro Koizumi
is a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. He retired from politics when his term in parliament ended.Widely seen as a maverick leader of the Liberal Democratic Party , he became known as an economic reformer, focusing on Japan's government debt and the...
:
- "It is a noteworthy fact that though we have gone through various phases in our relationship, in times of difficulty, we have stood by each other. It is important to recall that India refused to attend the San Francisco Peace ConferenceTreaty of San FranciscoThe Treaty of Peace with Japan , between Japan and part of the Allied Powers, was officially signed by 48 nations on September 8, 1951, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, California...
in 1951 and signed a separate Peace Treaty with Japan in 1952". This, Pandit NehruJawaharlal NehruJawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
felt, gave to Japan a proper position of honour and equality among the community of free nations. In that Peace Treaty, India waived all reparation claims against Japan. The dissenting judgement of Justice Radhabinod Pal is well-known to the Japanese people and will always symbolize the affection and regard our people have for your country."
On December 14, 2006, Singh, made a speech in the Japanese Diet
Diet of Japan
The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...
. He stated:
- "The principled judgment of Justice Radhabinod Pal after the War is remembered even today in Japan. Ladies and Gentlemen. These events reflect the depth of our friendship and the fact that we have stood by each other at critical moments in our history."
On August 23, 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Shinzo Abe
was the 90th Prime Minister of Japan, elected by a special session of the National Diet on 26 September 2006. He was Japan's youngest post–World War II prime minister and the first born after the war. Abe served as prime minister for nearly twelve months, before resigning on 12 September 2007...
met with Pal's son, Prasanta, in Kolkata, during his day long visit to the city. Prasanta Pal, now an octogenarian, presented prime minister Abe with four photographs of his father, of which two photographs were of Radhabinod Pal with Nobusuke Kishi
Nobusuke Kishi
was a Japanese politician and the 56th and 57th Prime Minister of Japan from February 25, 1957 to June 12, 1958 and from then to July 19, 1960. He was often called Shōwa no yōkai .- Early life :...
. They chatted for half an hour at a city hotel.
Quotes
"Questions of law are not decided in an intellectual quarantine area in which legal doctrine and the local history of the dispute alone are retained and all else is forcibly excluded. We cannot afford to be ignorant of the world in which disputes arise.""Even contemporary historians could think that 'as for the present war, the Principality of Monaco, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, would have taken up arms against the United States on receipt of such a note (Hull note
Hull note
The Hull note or officially Outline of Proposed Basis for Agreement Between the United States and Japan was the final proposal delivered to the Empire of Japan by the United States before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war between the two nations...
) as the State Department sent the Japanese Government on the eve of Pearl Harbor.'"
"When time shall have softened passion and prejudice, when Reason shall have stripped the mask from misrepresentation, then Justice, holding evenly her scales, will require much of past censure and praise to change places." (A conclusion of the dissent. Pal here is quoting Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...
)
"I might mention in this connection that even the published accounts of Nanking 'rape' could not be accepted by the world without some suspicion of exaggeration... Referring to the same incident, Sir Charles Addis on that occasion could say: 'Between two countries at war there was always a danger that one or other of the combatants would seek to turn public opinion in his favour by resort to a propaganda in which incidents, inseparable alas from all hostilities, were magnified and distorted for the express purpose of inflaming prejudice and passion and obscuring the real issues of the conflict.'" (page 606 of his Dissent)
External links
- http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/65_S3.pdf ( Justice Pal's Profile)
- http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/65_S4.pdf ( the full texts of Dissentient judgment of Justice Pal International Military Tribunal for the Far East)
- http://www.nankingatrocities.net/Tribunals/imtfe_01.htm (includes a picture and additional details)
- http://homepage3.nifty.com/kadzuwo/history/Hall-content.htm (Original judgment by Justice Radhabinod Pal)
- Decades After War Trials, Japan Still Honors a Dissenting Judge