UNESCO Committee Rejects Seoul Push to Reopen Japan Forced-Labour Review

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee on 7 July rejected South Korea’s request for a formal review of Japan’s follow-through on promises to acknowledge wartime forced labour at Hashima Island and other Meiji-era industrial sites. The agenda proposal was defeated in an unprecedented secret ballot during the committee’s 47th session in Paris. Of the 21 member states, seven supported a Japanese-submitted motion to drop the item, three opposed it, while eight abstained and three ballots were ruled invalid, leaving Seoul well short of the simple majority needed to keep the matter on the agenda. The outcome makes a near-term reassessment of Japan’s implementation efforts unlikely at UNESCO level. Tokyo had pledged in 2015, when the 23 industrial facilities won World Heritage status, to present their full history, including the use of some 57,000 Korean labourers under Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule. Seoul contends that museum exhibits and other measures fall short of that commitment. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry expressed regret over the vote and said it will use the remainder of the Paris meeting, as well as bilateral and other multilateral channels, to press Japan to honour its commitments. The decision is seen as a setback for Seoul’s campaign to keep international attention on the forced-labour issue.