Comfort Women Damages Lawsuit against the Japanese Government

In 2021, former South Korean comfort woman Lee Yong-soo and the bereaved family of the late Kim Bok-dong, along with other victims and heirs, filed a damages lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court (Case Reiwa 3 (Wa) No. 523) against the Japanese government. They sought an official apology and financial compensation, arguing that the wartime military sexual slavery system constituted egregious human rights violations. The case proceeded to the Tokyo High Court, which issued a pivotal ruling in 2025. The court grappled with international law, state immunity, and the validity of the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations, while also confronting long-suppressed historical trauma. This case became a focal point for the unresolved grievances of survivors and the legal accountability of a state for past atrocities.

In 2025, the Tokyo High Court upheld the lower court's dismissal of all compensation claims. The court ruled that under the prevailing interpretation of international and domestic law, the Japanese government is protected by the principle of state immunity. It further held that any individual claims were conclusively settled by the 1965 bilateral agreement with South Korea. However, the court unusually acknowledged the profound and irreparable suffering of the victims as a historical fact, expressing moral sympathy while denying legal remedy.

Whether the Japanese government can invoke state sovereign immunity to bar compensation claims for wartime sexual slavery; whether the 1965 Agreement on the Settlement of Problems concerning Property and Claims and on Economic Cooperation extinguished the individual right of comfort women victims to seek reparation; and whether the systemic sexual violence constituted a crime against humanity under customary international law overriding procedural defenses.

The 2025 ruling deepened the rift between Japan and South Korea, triggering immediate condemnation from Seoul and civil society groups. It galvanized transnational advocacy for comfort women, leading to renewed calls for United Nations intervention and boycotts of Japanese cultural exports. In Japan, the decision sharpened the domestic divide between conservative legal formalists and progressive voices urging historical reconciliation. The case, widely reported as a landmark "Japan-Korea case," underscored the limits of domestic courts in addressing colonial-era human rights abuses and reignited debate over the intersection of law, memory, and diplomacy in East Asia.