The trial within : negotiating justice at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946-1948
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: History, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Sedgwick, James Burnham
issued: 2012-07-11T22:17:23Z
issued: 2012
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: This dissertation explores the inner-workings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). Commonly known as the Tokyo trial, Tokyo tribunal, or Tokyo IMT, the IMTFE brought Japan’s wartime leadership to justice for aggression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed during World War II. Using rare sources in three languages from public and private collections in eight countries, this dissertation presents a multi-perspective experiential history of the IMTFE in operation. By placing the court in a distinct international moment that produced the United Nations, the Nuremberg trial, the Genocide Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among other outgrowths of global community, this work explores the IMTFE as both a groundbreaking judicial undertaking and a pioneering multilateral institution. Other scholars use overly reductive and judgmental constructs based on outside-looking-in perspectives to assess the court’s legal or moral legitimacy without appreciating or detailing its nuance and complexity. This dissertation prefers an inside-out view to explain the trial, not judge it. It describes the IMTFE as a collective endeavour and experience behind the scenes. Chapters review the personal, emotional, administrative, logistical, legal, political, and global dimensions of internationalism in action. Justice emerged as a contested encounter inside an involute web of intimate and external factors; transitional and transnational forces. Outside pressures – including postwar idealism, decolonisation, and the Cold War – meshed with and filtered through the intrinsic elements of ‘being international’ on the ground: social interaction, personal responses, and professional engagement. This ‘trial within’ influenced every aspect of IMTFE processes and outcomes, and the complexity of its internal dynamics best explains enduring criticism and memory of the court as a political trial or manifestation of victors’ justice. Although …
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/42658
note: THE TRIAL WITHIN: NEGOTIATING JUSTICE AT THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL FOR THE FAR EAST, 1946-1948 by JAMES BURNHAM SEDGWICK B.A. (Honours), Acadia University, 2002 M.A., The University of Canterbury, 2004 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (History) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) July 2012 © James Burnham Sedgwick, 2012 ii Abstract This dissertation explores the inner-workings of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). Commonly known as the Tokyo trial, Tokyo tribunal, or Tokyo IMT, the IMTFE brought Japan’s wartime leadership to justice for aggression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed during World War II. Using rare sources in three languages from public and private collections in eight countries, this dissertation presents a multi-perspective experiential history of the IMTFE in operation. By placing the court in a distinct international moment that produced the United Nations, the Nuremberg trial, the Genocide Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among other outgrowths of global community, this work explores the IMTFE as both a groundbreaking judicial undertaking and a pioneering multilateral institution. Other scholars use overly reductive and judgmental constructs based on outside-looking-in perspectives to assess the court’s legal or moral legitimacy without appreciating or detailing its nuance and complexity. This dissertation prefers an inside-out view to explain the trial, not judge it. It describes the IMTFE as a collective endeavour and experience behind the scenes. Chapters review the personal, emotional, administrative, logistical, legal, political, and global dimensions of internationalism in action. Justice emerged as a contested encounter inside an involute web of intimate and external factors; transitional and transnational forces. Outside pressures – including postwa…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2012-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0072876
language: eng
degree discipline: History
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42658