In pursuit of our historical obligations
The Center for Research and Documentation on Japan’s War Responsibility was established in April 1993 as the first-ever non-governmental organization dedicated to conducting through investigations into the issues of war-victimization in Asia by Japan. The Center is supported by individual members ranging from historians, legal experts and writers to conscientious citizens, all united solely through their conscience and concern for Asian war victims.
Research Activities
The issues currently being tackled by the Center are ‘military comfort women’ , Unit 731, massacres, POWs & Internees, colonial rule, war crimes trials, compensation, and so on. In this regard, the Center has conducted a wide range of research activities from systematic document searches in the National Diet Library and other libraries to “field investigations” in South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and China
Actions
Based on its own research finding the Center makes active efforts to bring belated justice to surviving victims in Asia. Among other things, the Center has informed the Japanese government of its findings by submitting research papers and by making formal requests to politicians and bureaucrats. These actions have produced concrete results. For example, a research paper submitted by the Center to the Japanese government in July 1993 was one factor in the government’s acknowledgement of the forced nature of the mobilization of ‘comfort women’ one month later.
Furthermore, the Center appeals to international public opinion against unsettled war crimes of Japan. On the comfort women issue, the Center has provided research findings to the United Nationas Human Rights Commission as well as to the International Commission of Jurists, an internationally acclaimed NGO of legal experts. The UN Special Rapporteur received crucial information on the comfort women issue from the Center, contributing to the Coomaraswamy Report released in 1996, which recommended state compensation for the surviving victims.
Last but not least, the Center has developed a comprehensive network of domestic and foreign NGOs. Specifically, the Center offers up-to-date information on research findings and actions to foreign NGOs, hosts and co-hosts international symposia in Japan and abroad, and plays a coordinative role in campaigning at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Publications
Quarterly Journal
'Senso Sekinin Kenkyu ' [The Report on Japan’s War Responsibility]First published in September 1993. The latest issue is No.55, March 2007.
Membership
Normal Member -------------Annual Fee 7,000yen
Free subscription to the Center’s Journal, Senso Sekinin Kenkyu, and its newsletter, Let’s.
Supporting Member -------Annual Fee 20,000yen
Office
607-7-28-1 Takadanobaba, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0075, Japan
Tel/Fax 03-3204-7477
jwrc@mua.biglobe.ne.jp
