Japan's Supreme Court upheld a ruling today denying compensation to two Chinese women who were forced to work in military brothels during World War II.
Backing a Tokyo High Court ruling, the Supreme Court said that the women had no right to seek war compensation from Japan because of a 1972 agreement with China, Japanese media reports said.
The plaintiffs, who filed their suit in 1996, had been seeking compensation from the government, a report said, adding one of the women died in 1999, and her family took over the suit.
In a similar ruling today, the top court overturned a lower court ruling awarding compensation to five Chinese who were forced to work for a Japanese construction company during the war.
That Supreme Court decision also referenced the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communique, in which Beijing abandoned its right to claim war reparations from Japan.
Japanese courts have used the same argument in dozens of cases filed over the years by Asian victims of Japan's wartime atrocities.