Compensation[edit]

There has been a constant call from the Korean public (and to some extent, Japanese with left or liberal political leaning) that Japan should compensate Korean individuals who suffered from Japanese colonial rule. The Japanese government has refused to do so, arguing that it settled issues on a government-to-government basis under the 1965 agreement. The Korean government has argued that the 1965 agreement was not intended to settle individual claims against Japan for war crime or crimes against humanity as shown by documents presented during the negotiations specifically excluding claims for personal injuries incurred by Japan's violations of international laws.^[11] The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has advocated the Korean government's perspective by defining that the comfort women issue is a matter of human rights; the 1965 treaty only regulated property claims and not personal damages.^[12]

In January 2005, the Korean government disclosed 1,200 pages of diplomatic documents that recorded the proceeding of the treaty. The documents, kept secret for 40 years, recorded that the Japanese government actually proposed to the Korean government to directly compensate individual victims but it was the Korean government which insisted that it would handle individual compensation to its citizens and then received the whole amount of grants on behalf of the victims.^[13][14][15]

The Korean government demanded a total of 364 million dollars in compensation for the 1.03 million Koreans conscripted into the workforce and the military during the colonial period,^[16] at a rate of 200 dollars per survivor, 1,650 dollars per death and 2,000 dollars per injured person.^[17] South Korea agreed to demand no further compensation, either at the government or individual level, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910–45 colonial rule in the treaty.^[15]

Most of the funds from grants and loan were used for economic development,^[18] particularly on establishing social infrastructures, founding POSCO, building Gyeongbu Expressway and the Soyang Dam with the technology transfer from Japanese companies.^[19] Records also show 300,000 won per death was used to compensate victims of forced labor between 1975 and 1977.^[17]