South Korea’s Top Court Rules Japanese Company Must Pay Wartime Compensation

For the victims, the ruling capped a long and torturous legal battle.

Their struggle for compensation began in 1997, when two former workers sued Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal in Japan. But courts there sided with the company and the Japanese government, saying the 1965 treaty had settled the issue.

In 2005, they joined two other former workers to take their case to South Korean courts. At first, judges supported the Japanese court decisions. But in 2012, the Supreme Court sent the case back to a lower court, saying the Japanese rulings contravened the South Korean Constitution and international legal norms.

In 2013, a lower court in South Korea ordered the Japanese steelmaker to pay compensation to the plaintiffs. That same year, another court ordered the Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay similar compensation to five former workers. In 2014, another Japanese company, Nachi-Fujikoshi, was ordered to compensate 13 former workers who were still alive and the families of 18 others who had died.

The Japanese companies appealed, ultimately leading to the Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday upholding the workers’ claims.

South Korean prosecutors are investigating allegations that the Supreme Court sought budgetary and other political favors from former President Park Geun-hye in return for delaying a ruling on the cases to save Ms. Park a diplomatic headache. In 2016, her Foreign Ministry told the court that it feared diplomatic repercussions if it ruled in favor of the victims.

President Moon Jae-in, who replaced Ms. Park last year following her impeachment, has argued that the 1965 agreement should not prevent the victims from seeking redress. Mr. Moon has also criticized, but stopped short of nullifying, Ms. Park’s unpopular 2015 agreement with Japan to “finally and irreversibly” resolve a decades-old dispute over “comfort women,” Korean women who were forced into badual slavery during World War II.

Washington has repeatedly urged Japan and South Korea to overcome their historical differences so they can better work together with the United States to end the North Korean nuclear threat and counter China’s growing influence in the region.