International Collaboration for understanding the experiences of POWs and Internees in modern Japan

Project Gist

The comprehensive study of the treatment of Prisoners of War and internees in Japan between the World Wars

Keywords

Prisoner of War (POW), Internment, Internee, Camp, The First World War

Background and Purpose

This research project examines the Japanese experiences of Prisoners of War and internees between the World Wars and explores the significance in the broad context of the changing ways of war and the development of international humanitarian law.
The study of Prisoners of War and internees are popular in Europe and the US, but this does not hold true for Japan. This project attempts to fill the gap.

Project Achievements

This research group consists of Japanese and European researchers who have had outstanding achievements in the study of wars, POWs and civilian internment. We have done archival research, field work and international workshops as part of this project. We collected a number of valuable primary resources, and published some of them. We held workshops in Britain in 2018, and in Malta in 2019 in order to publish an edited volume in the near future.

Future Prospects

We published some memoirs written by Japanese internees during the First World War in Ehime Law Review, vol.43-46. We are now planning to publish a volume which covers many other primary resources. We will publish a volume on the basis of the papers presented in our workshops by the end of 2020.

Figure

Joint Research/Academic Institutions Abroad

University of Cambridge, University College Dublin

Principal Investigator