customary international law; civil claims of China for war reparations against Japan; Sino-Japanese Joint Communiqué
【摘要】
It is still a hot debate: Does China still have the rights to civil claims for war reparations from Japan in spite of its signature of the Sino-Japanese Joint Communiqué of 1972? The Supreme Court of Japan has recently made a number of relevant judgments on this issue, which have cited several specific reasons and have touched on the principles of customary international law and the officially disclosed negotiation documents on the normalization of China-Japan diplomatic ties. This paper is a response to the reasons cited by the Supreme Court of Japan, which analyses the controlling doctrines and issues involved in this debate, including the Framework of Peace Treaty of San Francisco with Japan, the legal effect of the Sino-Japanese Joint Communiqué and its relationship with the Peace Treaty between Japan and Taiwan (China). Through this analysis, this paper reaches the conclusion that the Sino-Japanese Joint Communiqué does not waive the civil claims of China for war reparation.
