Hidden Atrocities: Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial

September 26, 2018 12:00PM 12:00-1:30pm Building E40-496 (Pye Room)

Summary:

In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied intent to bring Axis crimes to light led to both the Nuremberg trials and their counterpart in Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal of the Far East. Yet the Tokyo Trial failed to prosecute imperial Japanese leaders for the worst of war crimes: inhumane medical experimentation, including vivisection and open-air pathogen and chemical tests, which rivaled Nazi atrocities, as well as mass attacks using plague, anthrax, and cholera that killed thousands of Chinese civilians. In Hidden Atrocities (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), Jeanne Guillemin goes behind the scenes at the trial to reveal the American obstruction that denied justice to Japan's victims.

Bio:

Jeanne Guillemin's training in medical sociology and anthropology at Harvard and Brandeis Universities has led to her involvement in issues regarding unusual infectious diseases (including anthrax, SARS, the Ebola virus, and MERS) and biological and chemical weapons. In addition to consulting and lecturing, Guillemin was a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on WMD (2009-13), served on the board of Transaction Books, and is an associate of the Harvard-Sussex Program on chemical and biological weapons disarmament.

 

Security Studies Seminar