Talk:Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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[edit] Hague Convention says no to Atomic Bombs?

This is from Article One of the convention: "Considering that it is important, in order to ensure the maintenance of pacific relations, that hostilities should not commence without previous warning; That it is equally important that the existence of a state of war should be notified without delay to neutral Powers;... The existence of a state of war must be notified to the neutral Powers without delay, and shall not take effect in regard to them until after the receipt of a notification, which may, however, be given by telegraph." Sounds to me that Japan, by attacking unaware US forces in Pearl Harbor before warning either the U.S.A. or any of the Neutral Powers involved, essentially removed themselves from the convention.

In addition: This is from the Annex, Chapter II, Article IV "Prisoners of war are in the power of the hostile Government, but not of the individuals or corps who capture them. They must be humanely treated. All their personal belongings, except arms, horses, and military papers, remain their property." I think the selection and eating of prisoners kind of goes against humane treatment. The Death Marches do not sound like humane treatment either.

To then claim protection of the convention on one side while ignoring the same rules on the other side seems hypocritical to me. In addition, there is no place in which the document actually talks about the bombing of cities. This was a Naval War document, discussing primarily the treatment of Neutral ships and countries encountered during a time of war. I believe the reference does not say what the article says it does. I will not remove it, but I will add a CN on it pending more details on how the source truly shows that the bombings were illegal according to this 1907 resolution on naval warfare and proper declaration of war and treatment of POWs. CodeCarpenter 17:17, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, in that paragraph we are reporting the opinion of the Shimoda court, and there's a ref there for it already. If you like, i can dig out those sources and quote 'em here, then we can make sure that text is fully supported by the references.
If you want to balance that paragraph w/ a dissenting opinion i can look for something—no guarantees of finding anything tho.—eric 17:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the offer. veiwing the Shimoda court page, it looks like someone just copied the chunk either from there or to here, they are so similar. I am guessing I will need to get the Falk book to see the actual context for the reference. I don't feel a strong need to balance it, since it is in the section for those against, I just wanted more traceable (linkable for web bound folks like myself) references. By just adding the CN, I figure someone with the time will clear up any missing details. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CodeCarpenter (talk • contribs) 18:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC).
Here's the passage from Falk:

It is probable that the Tokyo opinion will be received favorably by international lawyers throughout the world, admiration being expressed for its dispassionate approach, careful and exhaustive examination of all the legal questions presented, and its conservative conclusions. The court was careful to refrain from making extravagant claims about the relevance of international law to the conditions of atomic attack and to avoid "legislating" on the delicate matters before it. At the same time, it reached the clear and momentous conclusion that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illegal. The court acknowledged the delicacy of its role in characteristic Japanese manner by rendering the decision on December 7, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, thereby linking the aggressive Japanese initiation of World War II with an appraisal of its brutal termination. This was a most graceful way to impart a sense of humility upon the whole proceedings and to express the moral ambiguity of the judge's role in a legal controversy drawn from the events of a major war. The District Court of Tokyo deserves commendation for its competence and tact in handling the case.

which some might argue is complete nonsense. The only thing that citation is used to support tho is that the Shimoda court concluded that the bombings were illegal, so the rest is probably irrelevant. It does look like my citation was incomplete—it's from a reprint of "The Claimants of Hiroshimain" in The Strategy of World Order Vol. 1 (New York: World Law Fund, 1966).—eric 18:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
From Boyle:

The Shimoda court found that the act of dropping an atomic bomb on cities was governed in part by the international laws and regulations respecting aerial warfare. These could be found in the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922–1923, the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907, and by analogy to the 1907 Hague Convention on the Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War. Although no nation had formally adopted the comprehensive Hague Draft Rules, the court noted that they were authoritative with respect to air warfare and were consistent with international laws, regulations and customs at the time. In the opinion of the court, therefore, the Hague Draft Rules constituted customary international law on the subject of air warfare as of 1945.

—eric 18:43, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Oops, missed the first one from Falk, here it is:

...several important conclusions. First, that it is neither possible, nor necessary, to conclude expressly that international law forbids the use of atomic (or nuclear) weapons, although the reasoning of the opinion suggests that such weapons would almost always be illegal if used against cities. Second, that the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war. And third, that these claimants have no remedy...

Actually here i'm not sure if the quotation marks are around "caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering..." are appropriate, the article text looks like we are quoting the court where (i think) we are just quoting Falk.—eric 18:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Well done EricR! I agree that the first passage is a bit, ummm, flowery. I doubt that the court waited for 12/7 to render it's decision on purpose, it was more likely a coincidence. And, their actions did not initiate WWII (just initialted it for the US. Ask England if WWII started on 12/8/1941. :) The part where you are quoting Falk is fine, since I am fairly sure it is similar in tone to what the court was trying to say in the first place. I am going to take the CN off, thanks to your efforts! Oh, and don't feel bad about previewing, I still forget to sign so much, I probably owe Hagermanbot some royalties! :) CodeCarpenter 21:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


I don't think that the ICJ refers to the The Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State ruling in their advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons (1996). Which it the ruling had had a large influence on international law one would of expected them to have done so.

To build the arguments they did Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State argued that "Although the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare [(1923)] cannot be described as part of positive law as they have not yet come into effect as a treaty, students of international law regard them as authoritative on the law of air warfare." but then they totally ignored the "Amsterdam Draft Convention for the Protection of Civilian Populations Against New Engines of War" (1938) which was convenient for their argument because the Amsterdam Draft states:

Art. 2. The bombardment by whatever means of towns, ports, villages or buildings which are undefended is prohibited in all circumstances. A town, port, village or isolated building shall be considered undefended provided that not only (a) no combatant troops, but also (b) no military, naval or air establishment, or barracks, arsenal, munition stores or factories, aerodromes or aeroplane workshops or ships of war, naval dockyards, forts, or fortifications for defensive or offensive purposes, or entrenchments (in this Convention referred to as "belligerent establishments") exist within its boundaries or within a radius of "x" kilometres from such boundaries.

which rather spoils Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State's argument on what was or was not a defended town in WWII.

Yes, I don't think the quote is from the judgement, "we are just quoting Falk", (if I can put it like that).--Philip Baird Shearer 22:34, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradictions within article?

A few things I’ve noticed, mostly seem to possible typos or minor mistakes but I’d rather post something here first:

1) In the ‘Manhattan Project’ section: “Over 3½ years of direct U.S. involvement in World War II, approximately 400,000 American lives had been lost, roughly half of them incurred in the war against Japan.”

In the ‘Debate over bombings, Support, Preferable to invasion ’ section: “Total U.S. combat deaths on all fronts in World War II in nearly four years of war was 292,000”

These two statements are contradictory – they appear to be giving two very different values for the WW2 U.S.A. combat deaths. If they each refer to deaths in different theatres/across different time periods etc then this should be clarified, otherwise the figures should be amended to the best sourced and most widely recognised value.

Good point Mathew White is always a good source for such things: National Death Tolls for the Second World War: USA. The White source explains the differences. This article should cite him and his sources --Philip Baird Shearer 19:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

2) A citation is still needed on “U.S. military planners projected 20,000–110,000 combat deaths from the initial November 1945” – this is a rather important part of the rationale of the utilitarian justification of the use of the atomic bomb, surely the person that posted this must have based it on a sourceable reference?

3) In the ‘Opposition, Militarily unnecessary’ section, the last three names in the list of US military officers opposed to the bombing are separated with ‘and’ rather than commas. This is either a simple grammatical error or a POV attempt at accentuating the no. of US military officials in opposition – either way it should be changed.

4) In the next paragraph – “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan”. This is not elaborated on and gives the impression that the Japanese offered reasonable terms of surrender which the US rejected because they wanted to drop the bomb anyway for other reasons – this also seems to contradict the part of the ‘Support’ section titled “Japan chose not to surrender” which gives a reasoned argument for Japan not being willing to surrender until after the atomic bombing (I’ve got no idea whatsoever if this is true or not, but the argument is logical and well sourced and as such, seems to fit the historical facts & thus is convincing).

If Japan did sue for peace before the atomic bomb then the terms they offered should be included and juxtaposed with the terms of surrender they accepted after the atomic bomb – if they accepted worse terms (for them) after the attacks than they offered before the attacks then this would be proof that America dropping the atomic bombs on them was a causative factor in their subsequent surrender. Otherwise, stating that Japan was going to surrender anyway before the bomb was dropped is just speculation (if there are good arguements for Japan's impending surrender then they should be articulated) somewhere in the article - again; theories should only be stated in articles like this if they are logically deduced from verifiable, sourced evidence

[EDIT] I've just noticed these other Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#The_surrender

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm

“Japan's decision to surrender was made before the scale of the Soviet attack on Manchuria, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands was known (See Downfall, pg 289), but had the war continued, the Soviets had plans to invade Hokkaidō well before the other Allied invasion of Kyushu”

Which seem to contracdict some of the arguements against the bombings leading to the surrender (& specifically the one saying it was the Russian invasion that caused Japan to surrender) and are better sourced etc than the parts of this article they contradict. [EDIT]

As someone without a great deal of independent detailed knowledge of this event, the points I’ve raised are primarily to do with my initial reactions (on my first reading of the article) to what seem to be self-contradictions within the article. Hopefully when these are corrected, along with 1 or 2 sections that ramble on a bit and need the structure cleared up and maybe borderline POV (I’ll post about these later when I have more time) this will improve the article’s quality!Dex 18:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

A Wikipedia article is a horse designed by a committee so the result is often a camel. The trouble is that there are conflicting points of view not only between Wikipedia editors but also among the experts. For example "Soviets had plans to invade Hokkaido" well yes they did but the US armed forces had contingency plans to invade Britain during the inter war years. If you look at the discussion pages, there is a debate about if a successful invasion was feasible, (given that the Soviets had relatively little experience of such operations). "The terrible ifs accumulate", given that any plans to invade were secret for obvious operational reasons, did the Japanese consider this when discussing surrender, I don't know, does anyone know? If they did not discuss it did thinking along this line influence their opinions? All we can do here is report what historians have published and try to present a coherent NPOV. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
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