This thesis takes a fresh look at the legal practices observed at the Sŏnch’ŏn trial, the main trial of the Korean Conspiracy Case. On 28 June 1912, 132 suspects were brought forth on charges of alleged assassination of the first Governor-General of colonial Korea, Masatake Terauchi. It is argued that if the immediate local interests of the new administration invariably affected the entire case, what determined the nature of the suspects’ treatment before and during the trial was a set of formal and informal legal practices that were transported to the colony amidst legal reforms. By analysis the trial from an empire-wide perspective, this study looks at how specific legal practices from the metropole were exacerbated in Korea through legal loopholes and the agency of legal actors and how such informal and disavowed legal practices both defined the legal system of the colony and helped sustain the Japanese colonial venture.

This thesis takes a fresh look at the legal practices observed at the Sŏnch’ŏn trial, the main trial of the Korean Conspiracy Case. On 28 June 1912, 132 suspects were brought forth on charges of alleged assassination of the first Governor-General of colonial Korea, Masatake Terauchi. It is argued that if the immediate local interests of the new administration invariably affected the entire case, what determined the nature of the suspects’ treatment before and during the trial was a set of formal and informal legal practices that were transported to the colony amidst legal reforms. By analysis the trial from an empire-wide perspective, this study looks at how specific legal practices from the metropole were exacerbated in Korea through legal loopholes and the agency of legal actors and how such informal and disavowed legal practices both defined the legal system of the colony and helped sustain the Japanese colonial venture.