South Korea has refuted Japan’s accusation that it is violating international laws on the wartime forced labor issue, saying Japan is the one that has violated international laws.

South Korea's deputy national security adviser, Kim Hyun-chong, relayed the stance in a media briefing on Friday, after Tokyo protested Seoul’s refusal to respond to its request to form a third-party arbitration panel to discuss disputed South Korean court rulings on wartime forced labor.

[Sound bite: Kim Hyun-chong - deputy chief, Presidential National Security Office (Korean)] 
"Japan's wrong to continuously claim that [South Korea] is violating international law. The South Korean Supreme Court ruled that the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Korea and Japan did not cover crimes against humanity and human rights violations, and as a democratic state, South Korea cannot ignore or discard the ruling." 

Kim said the South Korean Supreme Court’s rulings last year acknowledged the 1965 normalization treaty between the two countries did not include crimes against humanity and human rights violations, adding South Korea as a democratic state cannot dismiss the judiciary's decisions. 

He contended that Japan breached international laws dictating free trade principles by imposing its unilateral trade restrictions on South Korea, significantly damaging the global value chain as a result. Kim emphasized that Japan’s wartime forced labor amounts to crimes against humanity and violations of international laws. 

The South Korean official also countered Japan’s protest regarding the third-party arbitration panel, saying Seoul has never consented to Tokyo’s arbitrary and unilateral timeline for responding to the request.