South Korea's unicameral parliament on Tuesday approved a bill that seeks to reexamine the country's modern history dating back to the Japanese colonial era, the country's news agency Yonhap reported.

The Act on Review of History for Truth and Reconciliation seeks to establish a special committee that would investigate past atrocities, including massacres of civilians during the 1950-53 Korean War and human rights violations by governments in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Yonhap.

The 15-member committee will also work to reevaluate the independence movements against Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea by looking at the lives of previously unrecognized figures, possibly including Kim Il-sung, the late founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

However, investigations regarding Japan's colonial rule of Korea will only be limited to independence movements by Koreans as Japan' s atrocities during the period are to be dealt with by a different committee, established by a separate legislation enacted at the end of last year.

Cases to be investigated by the history review committee also include the alleged killings of civilians by military forces from the DPRK and South Korea during the Korean War, but allegations of civilian massacres committed by the US military during the war have been excluded.

Critics of the law tried to block the passage, saying the legislation was "incomplete" and claimed it would not yield correct accounts of history as originally planned.