Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State was an unsuccessful case brought before the District Court of Tokyo by a group of five survivors of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who claimed the action was illegal under the laws of war and demanded reparations from the Japanese government on the ground that it waived the right for reparations from the U.S. government under the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco.

Following the surrender of Japan and the landing of U.S. occupation troops in the country, Prime Minister Naruhiko Higashikuni offered not to make any complaints in the media or in legal institutions about the use of the nuclear weapons if the United States Government agreed to drop its demand to try Japanese war criminals.

As a result, many Japanese leaders and military personnel escaped prosecution for the bombings of Asian cities and unprovoked attack on the neutral United States at Pearl Harbor.

In co-operation with local organizations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a group of five people were selected for the purpose of making the motion in a Japanese court.

[2] Proceedings at the District Court in Tokyo began in April 1955, and they lasted for eight and a half years until the final ruling was rendered on December 8, 1963.

[2] On 7 December 1963, in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the subject of a Japanese judicial review.

[12] that the facts were that The plaintiffs, Japanese nationals, were all residents either of Hiroshima or of Nagasaki when atomic bombs were dropped on these cities by bombers of the United States [Army] Air Force[s] in August 1945.

The plaintiffs' cause of action was based, more specifically, on the provisions of Article I of the State Redress Law, which was applicable to the case of injury to a private person through an unlawful act of a government official; on the provisions of Article 29 of the [Japanese] Constitution, which provided for the obligation to pay just compensation in every case of expropriation of private property by the State for public use; and, finally, on unlawful infringement of the rights of the plaintiffs through the omission of the defendant to take appropriate measures for recovery of compensation.

[17] One of the main arguments of the court in the Shimoda case, that the waiver of claims in the San Francisco peace treaty precluded any actions for damages by Japanese citizens against the US government, was also used in the US legal system.