Japan Ignores Sado Mine's 'Forced Mobilization' for Second Year... World Heritage Committee Recommends "Full History Must Be Addressed"

Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Japan’s implementation of recommendations is insufficient”

Review to be conducted again by the World Heritage Committee in two years

It has now been exactly two years since the Sado Mine, where Koreans were forced into hard labor and lost their lives under the former Japanese government, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. However, it has been found that the Japanese government has not sufficiently fulfilled the commitments made at the time of the inscription. The World Heritage Committee (WHC) has once again recommended that “the entire history of the heritage site should be comprehensively addressed.” Here, “entire history” refers to the historical fact of “forced mobilization of Koreans,” which the Japanese side has consistently sought to avoid.

The Sado Mine, a forced labor site of Koreans listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Photo by Yonhap News

On the 15th, the WHC released a decision regarding the Sado Mine agenda on its website. This decision can be seen as the WHC's official review opinion regarding the state of conservation (SOC) report submitted by Japan to the committee in December of last year. In the decision, the WHC pointed out the need to clarify how the commentary and exhibition strategy relating to the site “comprehensively covers the entire history of the mine, including all periods of its development.” The committee also recommended that Japan regularly report on related progress to the World Heritage Centre and cooperate closely with relevant stakeholder countries, including Korea.

The WHC further requested that Japan update the SOC report to reflect implementation status by December 1 of next year, stating that this would be reviewed again at the committee meeting scheduled for 2028. In effect, the monitoring period for Japan’s inadequate fulfillment of its commitments has been extended by an additional two years.

An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, “Our government has consistently insisted that the full history, including the forced mobilization related to the Sado Mine, must be reflected,” adding, “The content of the WHC decision reflects our position that a re-examination is necessary given Japan’s insufficient implementation of the recommendations.” The official also said, “Going forward, we will continue to closely cooperate with the UNESCO Secretariat and relevant countries to ensure that Japan fully meets the commitments it made at the time of the Sado Mine’s World Heritage inscription.”

However, the WHC also stated that it “welcomed” some progress made by Japan, such as the establishment of a special exhibition room on Korean workers at the Aikawa Local Museum near Sado Mine in Niigata Prefecture, shortly after the World Heritage inscription. In fact, the committee even assessed that “most of the recommendations presented at the time of inscription have been implemented.” This decision is expected to be reviewed at the 48th WHC session to be held in Busan starting July 19, after which it will likely be adopted by consensus among the 21 member states.

At the 46th WHC session held in India in 2024, the committee decided on the World Heritage inscription of Sado Mine. At that time, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration agreed to the inscription on the condition that Japan faithfully implements the recommendation of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) to “reflect the entire history of Sado Mine at the site.”

However, even after two full years, Japan has not incorporated any reference to the forced labor of Koreans into the explanatory signage or facility information on-site at Sado Mine. As the Japanese government’s promises remain unfulfilled, memorial ceremonies for the Korean workers who perished at Sado Mine have, for two consecutive years, been reduced to “half-measures,” with the two governments holding separate ceremonies.

Nevertheless, despite repeated recommendations from the WHC and requests from the Korean government, there are no effective means to force Japan to actively comply with its commitments. Of the more than 1,000 cases where sites have been inscribed as World Heritage, it is reported that only three have ever been delisted. Therefore, even if Japan ultimately refuses to acknowledge the history of forced mobilization, it seems unlikely that the site’s World Heritage status will actually be revoked.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.