The conference "70 Years Later: The International Military Tribunal for the Far East" marked the 70th anniversary of the delivery of the judgment of the so-called Tokyo Tribunal. It is to date the largest event of its kind held in 2018, and provides a forum of exchange and dialogue to promote and advance international criminal law. It brought together more than 30 international experts from different disciplines, including law, history, and the social sciences. The focus was on substantive law and procedural law, obstacles and lessons learned, and the lasting impact that the judgment and trial have had on current international criminal law issues. The event was held in the historic Courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.
Kerstin von Lingen, who co-organized the event, is an associate member of the HCTS and Cluster "Asia and Europe," and currently a guest professor at the Chair for Research on Genocide, Violence, and Dictatorship at the University of Vienna. She also participated in the event jointly with her former Cluster Junior Research Group A16 "Transcultural Justice: Legal Flows and the Emergence of International Justice within the East Asian War Crimes Trials, 1945-1954.” Von Lingen was on the panel "The Tokyo Judgment: Origins and Relevance" and gave a talk about "Establishing the Tokyo Tribunal: Transcultural justice at Tokyo."
Further speakers from the former Junior Research Group were Dr. Milinda Banerjee, who presented his research on "Decolonization in Transnational Optics: India and the Tokyo Trial," Lisette Schouten with a talk about "The Selection of Judges and Dutch Representations at the IMTFE," and Valentyna Polunina, presenting "Soviet Riposte to the Tokyo Trial: The Khabarovsk Trial and Japanese Biological Warfare."
Kerstin von Lingen is also the editor of the recently published book Transcultural Justice at the Tokyo Tribunal: The Allied Struggle for Justice, 1946-48, to which all members of her Junior Research Group at the conference contributed a chapter.