koreanhistory1-7, Exercise 3: Was the annexation treaty valid? (a sample; yours will differ)

Model answer:

Claims with owners:
- The Provisional Government and the South Korean government: the treaty was void at signing (the article tags this [citation needed]).
- Japan: contested this (also tagged [citation needed]).
- Gojong: later called it a neugyak, a "forced treaty" (undated).
- Kan Kimura (2001 Harvard conference): Western scholars rejected the Korean claim of illegality.
- Anthony Carty: it is "difficult to find an international law sufficient to determine the legality/illegality of a particular treaty."
- 2010: 75 South Korean lawmakers asked the Japanese prime minister to nullify it; about 1,000 intellectuals said it "was never valid in the first place."

The 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations confirmed that agreements concluded "on or before August 22, 1910, are already null and void". It does not say from when they were void, so it does not settle "void at signing" versus "void by 1965". Sunjong's signature is also unsettled: the article says he refused to sign (tagged) and that he signed a general power of attorney to Yi Wan-yong.

[My own reading: both sides can use the same sentence, which is why the wording was a compromise.]