Stanley Internment Camp - Compensation

Compensation

In 1948, the U.S. government, through the War Claims Act, authorised the payment of US$60 for every month an adult spent in an internment camp, and US$25 per month for child internees. Some also received US$1 per day for "missed meals". In the UK, from 1952 to 1956, about 8,800 British internees, specifically those who normally resided in the UK when the war began, received a sum of ₤48.50 as reparation. Payments for American and British internees were made from the proceeds of Japanese assets seized per the Treaty of San Francisco. Dutch internees each received a sum of US$100, with the payments funded by a separate agreement signed between the Dutch and the Japanese in 1957.

The rise of Japan as an economic power and the opening of World War II files at the UK's Public Record Office created a sentiment in the 1990s that not enough had been done to redress the suffering of internees and prisoners-of-war. In November 2000, the British government announced a compensation scheme for British civilians who had been interned in World War II. The scheme called for a package of ₤167 million, and by February 2001, the first raft of payments of ₤10,000 were being made. Initially, the plan excluded British persons who had no "bloodlink" to Britain, a point of distinction that was made between those who were "British citizens" and those who were "British subjects".

In reaction to this, former Stanley internee Diana Elias launched a civil action case against the British government, alleging the distinction of "bloodlink" made by the compensation scheme was discriminatory, and that the Japanese authorities had made no such distinction in their treatment of the internees. Elias' family, including her parents and her grandparents, were all holders of British passports. The "bloodlink" distinction, however, made her ineligible for compensation because she is of Iraqi Jewish ancestry. In July 2005, the High Court in London ruled in her favour, and was subsequently backed by the Court of Appeals when the Ministry of Defence appealed the High Court's decision. This allowed for hundreds of surviving civilian internees to collect the compensation earlier denied to them by the "bloodlink" distinction.