A former Japanese prime minister has criticized his country’s incumbent government for its policy regarding the South Korean victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor, calling it nonsensical. 

Yukio Hatoyama tweeted Tuesday that individual right of claims cannot be annulled by an agreement or a treaty between the governments, calling it common sense under international laws on human rights. 

Citing similar opinions delivered by Kenji Utsunomiya, the former head of the Japan Federation of Bar Association, Hatoyama refuted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s claim that the 1965 normalization treaty between South Korea and Japan disqualifies individual claims to damages stemming from colonial issues.