Radhabinod Pal Memorial at Yasukuni Shrine

Monument to Justice Radhabinod Pal, the lone dissenter at the Tokyo War Trials, at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. After the Pacific war, conventional war crimes by the Japanese, categorized as Class B and Class C, were handled in local trials throughout Asia. Twenty-five top Japanese leaders, however, were charged with Class A crimes — of waging aggressive wars and committing crimes against peace and humanity, categories created by the Allies after the war — and tried in Tokyo by justices from 11 countries. Radhabinod Pal, who had served in Calcutta’s high court, was the Indian judge on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East’s trials. In his dissent, Justice Pal rejected the charges of crimes against peace and humanity as ex post facto laws, and opined that they were a “sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge.” While he fully acknowledged Japan’s war atrocities — including the Nanjing massacre — he said they were adequately covered in the Class B and Class C trials. Takeshi Nakajima, author of “Judge Pal” has said that Japanese critics of the trials have selectively chosen, and distorted, passages from his dissent (to argue that Japan did not wage a war of aggression in Asia but one of self-defense and liberation.). “[Judge] Pal was very hard on Japan, though he of course spoke very severely of the United States,” Mr. Nakajima said. “All imperialist powers were part of the same gang to him.“