Based on a Sankei Shimbun front-page investigation, this essay examines how Japan’s bar association advanced the comfort women issue at the United Nations, relying on unproven claims and politicized terminology, and why these facts demand global attention.

2017-04-07
This case demonstrates how legal activism can transform unproven allegations into international narratives through institutional repetition.
By invoking the authority of the United Nations while disregarding evidentiary standards, advocacy becomes political coercion.
The facts outlined here are not a domestic matter but a global accountability issue.
Ignoring them corrodes the credibility of international human-rights mechanisms themselves.

2017-04-07
The following is taken from the front page of yesterday’s 産経新聞.
This is a truth that all Japanese citizens, people around the world, and the United Nations itself must know.
In November 2016, Nobukatsu Fujioka, an executive member of the conservative group “National Movement for the Truth about Comfort Women” and a visiting professor at Takushoku University, together with others, visited 片山さつき, a former chair of the House of Councillors Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense.
They delivered approximately 11,000 signatures demanding the dismissal of attorney 林陽子, who was serving as chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
In March of that year, the committee issued an opinion criticizing the December 2015 Japan–South Korea agreement on the comfort women issue, which both governments had confirmed as a final and irreversible resolution, claiming it was “not victim-centered.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary 菅義偉 rebutted the view, stating that major countries and then–UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had welcomed the agreement and that the committee’s opinion ignored Japan’s explanations entirely.
The group launched a signature campaign calling for Hayashi’s dismissal, noting that the 日本弁護士連合会 had long engaged in anti-Japan activities at the United Nations and that Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had recommended Hayashi as a committee member.
According to sources, Katayama responded that greater care would be taken regarding future recommendations.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations first raised the comfort women issue before a UN committee in 2004, aiming to secure compensation.
Since then, it has actively issued declarations and statements on the matter.
One of the figures who led this effort was 土屋公献, who served as JFBA president in 2006 and 2007.
Tsuchiya acted as legal counsel for 朝鮮総連 in the 2007 sale of its headquarters and pursued Japan’s responsibility on the comfort women issue.
In March 2013, he met in Pyongyang with women identified as former comfort women and tearfully promised to achieve an apology and compensation while they were still alive.
In an October 2007 declaration during his JFBA presidency, the organization defined comfort women as having been forcibly taken, and in a November statement asserted that NGOs, including the JFBA, had demanded compensation from the government on the grounds that the women were “sexual slaves,” using terminology presented as UN language.
This article continues.