Kojin Karatani; For a New “Tokyo Tribunal”

I was thinking about the “Tokyo Tribunal” soon after 3/11. Not the Tokyo Tribunal held after the Second World War, of course, but a tribunal that would convict the entities tied to the nuclear power plant, namely Tokyo Electric Power and METI (the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry). They tried to hide the horrendous facts of the nuclear accident from the beginning, but they will surely be accused of their criminal act for causing the enormous damage in the future. Moreover, they did not only deceive the residents of Fukushima or the Japanese on the whole. This incident cannot remain a domestic problem because the radioactive materials released into the air and deposited into the ocean are going to affect populations outside of Japan. So I am convinced that the case would have to be an international trial. Another thought crossed my mind: this cannot resemble the Tokyo Tribunal of the past, which was designed by the winners to prosecute the defeated. However, the Japanese citizens were partly responsible for it, because they did not convict the war criminals for themselves. As a result, the Japanese citizens allowed the survival of the authorities who complied with the victors and promoted construction of nuclear power plants. Therefore now the citizens themselves must carry out the “Tokyo Tribunal,” which seeks responsibility for the incident – this is the definition of the Global Citizen’s Tribunal.
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