[KS] 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty

[Namhee Lee]

Dear members on the list:

I have a colleague who has been working on a legal case of a Korean who 
was forcibly drafted to work in a Japanese company during the colonial 
period.  After four and a half years of legal battle, the case is 
likely to face dismissal.  The defense team needs to come up with a 
brief to the California Supreme Court asking that court to review the 
decision of the lower court of appeal.  It seems  that the court's 
decision is based on a certain interpretation of the 1951 San Francisco 
Peace Treaty, and below is the detail.


> The court of appeal decision dismisses the case of Mr. Jeong, a Korean 
> who was a forced laborer for Onoda Cement Co. during the war.  The 
> main point of the decision is that the 1951 Treaty as a whole, 
> including article 14, and especially articles 4(b) (which refers to 
> Korea) and 26 (which may or may not refer to Korea, I'm not sure), 
> expressed the foreign policy of the U.S. government that this type of 
> claim be resolved through country-to-country negotiation (in this 
> situation it would be Japan and ROK).  It says that the 1999 
> California law that allows individuals to go to court to seek 
> compensation in an ordinary lawsuit constitutes an interference with 
> that national policy and should not be allowed to stand.

What the defense team is looking for:

>  
> What we are looking for, then, is contemporary historical evidence 
> that arts. 4(b) and 26 were not intended to have this effect, and that 
> therefore the court has misstated U.S. policy as expressed in the 
> treaty.  It is already assumed that the treaty by its own terms does 
> not bar lawsuits by people from non-signatory nations like Korea; the 
> court is saying that the more generalizedpolicy of the treaty does 
> this.
>  
The team doesn't have much time, and any help that any of you can 
provide would be greatly appreciated.


Best,
Namhee Lee