International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial)

The tribunal was established by a charter issued on 19 January 1946 by Gen. Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. It sat in the auditorium of the former Army Ministry and Army Academy building at Ichigaya, with eleven judges from Australia, Canada, China, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. Sir William Webb of Australia presided and Joseph B. Keenan of the United States was chief prosecutor.

Twenty-eight defendants were indicted on charges of crimes against peace, conventional war crimes and crimes against humanity. Matsuoka Yosuke and Nagano Osami died during the trial and Okawa Shumei was found unfit to stand trial. Judgment was read from 4 to 12 November 1948: all 25 remaining defendants were convicted. Seven (Tojo Hideki, Hirota Koki, Itagaki Seishiro, Doihara Kenji, Kimura Heitaro, Matsui Iwane and Muto Akira) were sentenced to death, sixteen to life imprisonment, Togo Shigenori to twenty years and Shigemitsu Mamoru to seven years. The executions were carried out at Sugamo Prison on 23 December 1948.

The trial compiled a vast documentary record of Japan's road to war. It has also been criticised from several directions: the charge of crimes against peace was regarded by critics as retroactive law; all judges came from the victor nations; the Emperor was not indicted; and matters such as Unit 731 were not prosecuted. Justice Radhabinod Pal of India dissented and would have acquitted all defendants, and Justices Roling (Netherlands) and Bernard (France) also filed dissenting opinions.

In the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 Japan accepted the judgments of the tribunal. Evaluation of the trial remains contested in Japan and abroad.