Tokyo Report | Society | East Asia

Japanese Court Rules North Korea Owes Compensation Over Its Past Repatriation Push 

Over 90,000 ethnic Koreans were enticed to leave Japan by North Korean propaganda in the early 1960s. Most remain trapped in North Korea.

In January, the Tokyo District Court found that a tort had been committed and ordered the North Korean government to pay compensation over the repatriation project that sent ethnic Koreans in Japan to North Korea from the 1960s to the ‘80s. 

The case was brought by four plaintiffs who moved to North Korea but later defected back to Japan. They expressed hope that “the ruling would help dispel the notion that escapees’ suffering was merely their own responsibility in Japanese society.” At the same time, they voiced concern for family members and acquaintances still in North Korea and renewed their hopes for improved Japan-North Korea relations.

Under the repatriation project carried out from 1959 to 1984, approximately 93,000 ethnic Koreans residing in Japan and their families moved to North Korea to settle there. They did so believing Pyongyang’s claims that the country was a “paradise on earth” with ample housing, food, and clothing. In reality, life in North Korea was harsh – and a return back to Japan was nearly impossible.

According to Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) statistics, the vast majority (around 80 percent) of the total number of people who went to North Korea did so during the first three years of the project, from its inception through 1961. After that, the number dropped sharply, and the program ended in 1984.

On January 26, the Tokyo District Court, in a retrial, ruled that the repatriation program constituted “a continuous tortious act in which the [North Korean] government encouraged the movement based on false information, then deprived people of their freedom to leave after arrival, forced them to remain, and subjected them to harsh living conditions.” The court ordered the North Korean government to pay a total of 88 million yen (around $553,000) in compensation to the four plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in 2018. Although they lost the case in the first trial in 2022, they successfully had the case remanded to the district court on appeal in 2023. This marks the first time that the North Korean repatriation program has been ruled an unlawful act within the Japanese judicial system.

“I am grateful that the Japanese court acknowledged the North Korean government’s wrongdoing,” said Yoko Sakakibara, 76, one of the plaintiffs. She expressed hope that, after the ruling, the traditional view in Japanese society that “those who suffered in North Korea through the repatriation project have only themselves to blame” will change, even slightly.

In the North Korean apartment building where she lived at the time, the tap water only reached the third floor. None of the floors above had running water. “It was an environment where, even if we had complaints about daily life, we couldn’t say anything to the government,” she recalled.

Professor Yoshiaki Kikuchi of Kanazawa Seiryo University, an expert on the Korean Peninsula, commented, “This ruling is of great significance in Japanese judicial history. Not only is it the first ruling ordering compensation from the North Korean government, but it is also the first time a Japanese court has recognized a long-standing international project as an illegal act.”

He further noted, “This serves as a catalyst for a fundamental reevaluation of Japanese society’s traditional view that, since those who participated in the repatriation project crossed over of their own volition,........

© The Diplomat