Five decades after the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the topic of whether Japan has settled its obligations with regard to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Japanese Imperial Forces remains controversial today. Victims of the war crimes of the Imperial Forces felt that the government has not taken responsibility and did not give compensation for the atrocities committed by its army during WWII.

The following is a brief overview of the atrocities committed.

-over 20,000 women were forced into prostitution, 150,000 of whom died

-inhumane biological experiments were performed on POWs and civilians without anesthetics. Victims were killed after the experiments

-27% of the POWs captured by the Japanese forces died, as compared to the 4% of that of the German and Italian regimes

-civilians were captured and forced to work as slave laborers without any pay

-hundreds of thousands of biological/chemical weapons were...