일본군 ‘위안부’ 문제와 책임성

Abstract

It is of importance to conceptualize the idea of responsibility concerning the issues of historical injustice. This paper is primarily concerned with the Japanese ‘comfort women’ issue and attempts to define an adequate idea of responsibility that applies to the ‘comfort women’ issue. For this purpose, it examines the limits of legal responsibility in addressing the Japanese ‘comfort women’ issue and then suggests the idea of political responsibility posed by Iris Young to explain structural injustice. The paper argues that the ‘comfort women’ issue is not adequately analyzed with the dichotomous framework of offender-defender (Japan- Korea). Instead, it considers the ‘comfort women’ issue as an oppressive structure generated by the intersections of colonialism, patriarchy, and class oppression. If the ‘comfort women’ issue is considered to be structural injustice, the paper argues that the idea of political responsibility rather than that of legal responsibility is proper to address the ‘comfort women’ issue.