GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, February 28, 1992 - Japan has provided its first response at the United Nations sessions in Geneva to a claim headed by The War Amputations of Canada for compensation from Japan for inhumane treatment of Allied PoWs and Civilian Internees during World War II. This is the first time since the claim was initiated in 1987 that Japan has replied to The War Amps intervention at a UN session.

The Japanese delegation at this week's United Nations sessions stated that Japan has not changed its position, and indicated that the Sub-Commission on Human Rights was correct in deferring the claim after sessions held last August. Japan's position in the past has been that the 1952 Peace Treaty reached with the Allied Governments extinguished any further rights of Allied PoWs and Civilian internees to seek compensation.

The War Amps formal public intervention was made under UN Resolution 1235, which allows the Commission on Human Rights to consider "Human Rights Violations Throughout the World" and provides an opportunity for interventions and representations by non-governmental organizations such as The War Amps.

The intervention resulted in other developments that are being viewed by The War Amps delegation as positive. One of these is that the claim received the support of several of the other Non-Governmental Organizations in Geneva. This includes the International Commission of Jurists, considered to be one of the most important Non-Governmental Organizations in Geneva.

Also noteworthy is that the intervention by The War Amps delegation was very well-received at the UN session. The delegation, consisting of Brian N. Forbes, Legal Counsel to The War Amps organization, and Professor John Humphrey, former United Nations Director of Human Rights and now consultant to The War Amps, was given twice the usual time allotted for interventions of this kind.

With this intervention ended, The War Amps will continue to pursue the claim in the future under a three-pronged approach consisting of:

1) Continuation of the claim under Resolution 1235. 2) Continuation of The War Amps original claim under Resolution 1503, a confidential procedure which draws the attention of the claim to all members of the Sub-Commission on Human Rights and all members of the Commission on Human Rights. 3) The initiation of a Communication under the Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which will raise the question of the responsibility of the Allied Governments, who in entering into the 1952 Peace Treaty failed to protect the interests of their Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees, and ostensibly waived certain rights of action to reparation in contravention to the Geneva Convention.

The claim, in which Canada has played a leading role on behalf of Allied Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees from the United States, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand and Canada is for $22,000 U.S. per survivor or widow.