Criticism has erupted around the world over the paper “Contracting for sex in the Pacific War” written by Mark Ramseyer, a Mitsubishi professor at Harvard University Law School. Ramseyer insists tha “comfort women” by Japanese imperial military made “credible contracts” with recruiters regardless of the Japanese government or the Japanese military. Ramseyer further insists that the “comfort women” were certified prostitutes. However, the Japanese government selected recruiters secretly and provided them with convenience in mobilizing women. Recruiters have deceived women, mainly by job fraud, into kidnapping them to military brothels. The recruiters signed with Japanese women as barmaids (shakuhu), meaning women who served drinks. However, the Japanese military brothels were prohibited from drinking. Almost Korean women were illiterate in 1940’s, so recruiters did not make contract papers with them. It was very easy to deceive Korean women to make sexual slaves of Japanese military. The surviving Japanese military’s surgeon or soldiers testified that Korean “comfort women” had been sexual slaves.

This essay is a reflection on the significance of U.S. accountability to the struggles of Jeju Islanders for reparations. Under international law, a strong case can be made for the United States’ obligation to acknowledge its role in the Jeju atrocities and to provide compensation to the victims.1 Addressing the United States’ responsibility for complicity in these actions will prove controversial, no doubt, for it has significant implications not for U.S. actions in other parts of the world but for all states engaged in military occupations or acting through surrogate governments. These legal and political ramifications diminish the likelihood of voluntary remedial action by the United States, and the international legal system is ill-suited to compel compliance. Nonetheless, even if Jeju Islanders are ultimately unable to obtain full satisfaction from the United States government for its role in the atrocities to which they have been subjected, I believe that recognition of the international legal obligations incurred by the U.S. in that process can reinforce the legitimacy of their claims, thereby aiding in the restoration of their dignity and supporting their on-going struggles for self-determination.