Xu Chi: The Tokyo Trial Reshapes the Perception of the International Rule of Law
Author: Xu Chi
In 2025, the world commemorates the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Fascist War. The two post-war international military tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo inaugurated a new era for the modern international rule of law. As a core event in the reconstruction of the post-war Asian order, the Tokyo Trial was not only a liquidation of the crimes of Japanese militarism but also a milestone in the international community’s profound legal reflection on the issues of war and peace. Within the international legal narrative long dominated by West-centrism, the significance of the Tokyo Trial has often been underestimated or even obscured. Today, facing the rise of unilateralism and hegemonic politics, re-excavating the historical significance of the Tokyo Trial has far-reaching implications for constructing a more inclusive international legal system.
From the Logic of Power to the Pursuit of Justice
Traditional international law was long constrained by the logic of power politics. From a historical perspective, when Hugo Grotius proposed the theory of "unlimited right to war" in the 17th century, his aim was not to end war, nor to seek a world secured by peace. On the contrary, he sought a world made secure through war. Under this old paradigm of international law, the ideology of war realism flourished, not only providing a legal cloak for colonial expansion but also making war an absolute attribute of national sovereignty. This view of international law relegated non-Western countries, such as China, to the status of the "barbarous world" [1], condoning an expansionist logic where powerful nations committed aggression in the name of "civilization."
The primary contribution of the Tokyo Trial, together with the Nuremberg Trial, was to announce the end of the old international legal order through judicial judgment. At the level of establishing criminal charges, the two trials creatively incorporated "crimes against peace" and "crimes against humanity" into the scope of international law. Traditional international law only regulated the conduct of war itself (jus in bello) but was powerless against the planning of war or systematic massacres that endangered the fundamental interests of humanity. By judicially affirming crimes such as the September 18th Incident [2] and the Nanjing Massacre, the Tokyo Trial elevated moral condemnation of war into legal sanctions, establishing the fundamental principle that "waging a war of aggression is a crime." This subversive reconstruction of the legal view of war transformed international law from a "contract between states" into a "guardian of the common interests of humanity."
To this day, there are still voices seeking to diminish or dissolve the legitimacy of the Tokyo Trial. However, if one delves into the essence of the principle of nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without law), it is not hard to see that this principle is intended to limit the power to define crimes and prevent the state from abusing criminal law to infringe upon citizens' rights. Any nation or human group, when faced with "natural crimes" [3] such as murder, arson, robbery, or rape, knows the nature of these acts constitutes a crime without needing recourse to statutory law; a war of aggression is undoubtedly the sum of serious natural crimes. World wars utterly destroy the foundational values of the international community—peace, security, and well-being—and "provide an international dimension to war crimes, transforming them into crimes under international law." In this sense, if the status of aggressive war as a crime was "nominal but not substantive" before World War II, then the two post-war trials ensured it was "both nominal and substantive."
Furthermore, by holding individual war criminals such as Hermann Göring and Hideki Tojo [4] accountable, the two trials thoroughly shattered the absolute myth of "sovereign immunity." The "principle of individual criminal responsibility" established by the trials applied moral evaluations of state actions to specific natural persons for the first time, liberating the pursuit of war responsibility from the ambiguity of "collective responsibility." This breakthrough established the modern judicial standard of "individual culpability" for international criminal law.
Disenchantment and Reconstruction of the "Civilization" Discourse
Nineteenth-century international law was essentially a tool for legitimizing European colonial expansion. The West used a "standard of civilization" to relegate non-Western countries to "barbarism," excluding them from the "international community of civilization" and using this as a pretext to launch colonial wars—even beautifying them as "spreading civilization." The sovereignty of Asian countries was undermined under the rules of "gunboat diplomacy." This international law, built on the realist logic of power, was essentially a "rule of the game for the strong," and countries like China were long its victims.
The Tokyo Trial tore away the hypocritical veil of this "civilization discourse." The trial revealed a brutal reality: when international law is reduced to a tool for power maneuvers, so-called "civilization" is merely a fig leaf for the law of the jungle. In the Tokyo Trial, countries once labeled as "barbaric," such as China, the Philippines, and India, became the subjects of the trial, while Japan, which had prided itself as a "top student of civilization," became the defendant. This historic reversal of roles completely exposed the hypocrisy of the "hierarchy of civilizations."
The Tokyo Trial promoted a rational return to the value of civilization. Amidst the ruins, the school of natural law found new vitality in international law. The birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the preliminary construction of the international criminal justice system signaled that common human values such as "justice" and "humanity" had replaced the worship of power as the spiritual core of international law. The Tokyo Trial proved that the true measure of civilization is not geography, race, or ideology, but universal respect for the right to life and dignity. This shift in values was like "parting the clouds to see the sun" [5], liberating international law from the shackles of the "hierarchy of civilizations" and moving toward a new realm of a community with a shared future for humanity.
From Historical Liquidation to the Construction of a Regional Legal Community
The "Asian factor" in the Tokyo Trial possesses irreplaceable historical significance, profoundly shaping the righteous character of this international judicial practice. As the primary victims of the war, Asian countries such as China, the Philippines, and India participated with the dual identity of victimized nations and judging nations, fundamentally validating the trial's legitimacy and justice. As the first country to suffer Japanese aggression, China—through the immense sacrifice of its 14-year War of Resistance [6]—provided the core legal basis for the trial. Japan’s aggressive acts beginning with the September 18th Incident in 1931 were included within the court’s jurisdiction, breaking the biased perception held by some countries that "war responsibility began in 1941." The Nanjing Massacre, the Bataan Death March, and the Manila Massacre were written into the judgment as the three major atrocities of the Japanese military, serving as key evidence for the court's determination of war crimes.
The judicial contributions of Asian judges cannot be ignored. As one of the majority judges, the Chinese judge Mei Ju-ao [7] consistently upheld legal principles during the trial. He was responsible for drafting Chapter 5 of the judgment, "Japanese Aggression Against China." He contributed over 200 pages and more than 100,000 words to the only effective judgment of the tribunal, safeguarding the authority of the trial and China's interests, and winning the admiration and respect of the world. The Philippine judge, Delfín Jaranilla, fully affirmed the Charter and the jurisdiction of the court. While the Indian judge Radhabinod Pal is famous for his dissenting opinion, his dissent critiqued the double standards in Western colonial history, noting that "if measured by the same yardstick, the atrocities of European colonizers in Asia should also be tried." These voices broke the Western monopoly on international justice and forced the international community to face the legal subjectivity of non-Western states.
The Tokyo Trial also catalyzed a collective pursuit of the rule of law in the East Asian region. With the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, Japan's promise to return to the international community was premised on its acceptance of the Tokyo Trial's judgment. The formulation of Article 9 of Japan's post-war Peace Constitution, "renouncing the right to war," was a direct response to the spirit of the Tokyo Trial. Even more profoundly, by exposing systematic crimes such as the "comfort women" system and the forced recruitment of laborers, the Tokyo Trial and subsequent Asia-Pacific trials stimulated a rights-consciousness in Asian civil society. The litigation movements by victims across Asia since the 1990s are a contemporary continuation of the spirit of the Tokyo Trial.
Toward a Pluralistic and Coexistent International Rule of Law
To this day, the historical value of the Tokyo Trial has not been fully recognized, which is closely related to the discourse monopoly of West-centrism. This is evident from the name "International Military Tribunal for the Far East"; a geographical cognitive framework with Europe as the starting point still subtly influences how the international community positions this trial. Behind this cognitive bias lies the deliberate neglect of non-Western experiences by the long-dominant Western narrative of international law.
However, historical truth does not change because of discourse bias. The fact that the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials governed Eurasia together, reflecting glory upon one another, proves that international law is not the "patent of Western civilization" but the crystallization of the collective wisdom of humanity. Transcending the limitations of geography and ideology, it is not difficult to see that the values promoted by this trial—restraining the violence of war through the rule of law, repairing the wounds of civilization through righteous judgment, and promoting the progress of international order through institutional innovation—belong not only to East Asia but to all of humanity.
Under the "changes unseen in a century" [8], revisiting the spirit of the rule of law in the Tokyo Trial holds special significance. Currently, the international community faces challenges such as the rise of unilateralism and intensified geopolitical conflicts; a resurgence of realist power politics threatens the hard-won peaceful order. At such a historical moment, we must draw upon the intellectual legacy of the Tokyo Trial, uphold the value attributes of international law, and refuse to allow it to be alienated into a tool for power politics. We must promote the development of the international rule of law in a more fair and inclusive direction, ensuring that justice is not biased due to the strength or weakness of nations.
From the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials to the development of the United Nations over the past 80 years, humanity's pursuit of the international rule of law has never ceased. These trials sowed the seeds of the rule of law amidst the ruins of war, proving through righteous judgment that even in the darkest moments, humanity can rebuild order through reason and conscience. This faith in the rule of law is precisely the spiritual impetus for us to navigate the mists of history and move toward lasting peace. Only by using history as a mirror, deepening our understanding of the value of the Tokyo Trial, and firmly defending the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law, can we finally realize the eternal ideal of "using law to stop war, and using law to nurture peace."
(The author is an Associate Researcher at the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) Source: Chinese Social Sciences Net - Chinese Social Sciences Today, September 3, 2025 Online Editor: Tong Xin