This innovative volume examines the nexus between war crimes trials and the pursuit of
collaborators in post-war Asia. Global standards of behaviour in time of war underpinned the
prosecution of Japanese military personnel in Allied courts in Asia and the Pacific. Japan's
contradictory roles in the Second World War as brutal oppressor of conquered regions in Asia
and as liberator of Asia from both Western colonialism and stultifying tradition set the stage
for a tangled legal and political debate: just where did colonized and oppressed peoples owe
their loyalties in time of war? And where did the balance of responsibility lie between
individuals and nations? But global standards jostled uneasily with the pluralism of the
Western colonial order in Asia where legal rights depended on race and nationality. In the end
these limits led to profound dissatisfaction with the trials process despite its vast scale
and ambitious intentions which has implications until today.
