Unfulfilled Justice and Medical Ethics at War Crime Trials: Nuremberg, Tokyo and Khabarovsk

초록

‘Doctors’ Trial’ in Nuremberg became the cornerstone of contemporary medical ethics in the Western society. Japanese doctors’ war crimes during the World War II, no less extensive atrocities than the Nazi doctors’, has not made much impact on the Eastern society. It is because Japanese medical war crimes were never brought to the Tokyo Trial due to America’s cover-up to get the military medical information from Ishii Shiro and his network in the name of national security. While Tokyo Trial was in progress, biological warfare scientists sent from US Intelligence gathered information from Ishii and his associates. Silence about medical war crime at Tokyo Trial went with active collection of information from US intelligence. This study aims to provide historical comparative analysis between war crime trials in Nuremberg, Tokyo, and Khabarovsk, focusing on differences in approach to information about human experimentation and biological warfare. During the trials of Nuremberg, Tokyo and Khabarovsk, information related to human experimentation and biological weapons were collected, but the way of dealing with the information showed a great difference during each trial. By focusing on the ways in which the information dealt with, against socio-geopolitical backdrop, this study investigates transitional ethical perception towards human experiment and biological warfare that rooted in during each trial.