The Tokyo High Court rejected an appeal Thursday by eight Dutch former prisoners of war who sought 20 million yen in compensation from the Japanese government for abuse they suffered at the hands of the former Imperial Japanese Army while interned in POW camps.

In handing down his ruling, presiding Judge Shigeki Asao said, "All rights by the Allied Powers (which did not include Holland) and their citizens to demand compensation from Japan were relinquished with the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in September 1951."

Holland became a signatory to the treaty in June 1952.

The ruling went a step further from the government's past position that the peace treaty does not automatically nullify the rights of individuals to sue.

"World leaders at the time believed that through the unconditional relinquishing of the right to demand compensation, they could have Japan participate in the Allied Powers' rebuilding of the postwar world, thereby bringing great merit on humankind," the judge said.

The plaintiffs, Dutch soldiers and private citizens, included Sjoerd Albert Lapre, who died in February 1999 at age 78.

After becoming prisoners of the Japanese military in the Dutch East Indies, they were beaten in the camps, forced to work building an airport, and forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers, they said. Such treatment violated international laws, including the 1907 Hague Convention regarding the laws dictating wars on land, which stipulated that POWs and civilians should be offered protection, according to the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs had appealed a November 1998 ruling by the Tokyo District Court, which acknowledged that the plaintiffs had been abused, but pointed out the Hague Convention "only clarifies the responsibilities of the aggressor nation to the victim nation."

Individuals cannot directly demand compensation from the state, and there is no international customary law that allows such action, the district court said.

In Thursday's ruling, Judge Asao said that recognizing the individual's right to sue for such compensation "would not only place the losing country at greater disadvantage but also serve as an obstacle to the restoration of peace and reconstruction." Reparations for wartime damage should be made through peace treaties among states, he said.

The plaintiffs expressed sadness at the ruling, saying it was regrettable that the court ignored the damage inflicted upon them.

Gerard Jungslager, 74, called the ruling "illogical," while supporters and lawyers for the plaintiffs expressed shock that Thursday's ruling went even further than the government's position regarding the limits of an individual's right to seek reparation.

"This is a conclusion based on a subjective view of war, and it cannot be a decision made by a member of the judiciary," lawyer Izomi Suzuki said.