Abstract
Human rights violations have never been the top priority for the U.S. and South Korea in dealing with North Korea. Neither Washington nor Seoul under the Trump and Moon administrations raised the issues during their meetings with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. In 2021, the South Korean government even banned flying anti-North Korea leaflets across the border, anticipating that anti-North Korea activities by non-governmental human rights organisations would only cause hostility on the North Korean side, disrupting nuclear negotiations and the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. This approach is based on the assumption, widely shared in Washington and Seoul, that removing security concerns and initiating political reconciliation towards reunification will bring about real changes to the North Korean people’s basic rights and well-being. The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security edited by Robert R. King and Gi-Wook Shin challenges this idea, arguing that human rights issues should be an integral part of policy towards North Korea.
The contributors to this book all agree that human rights must not be subordinate to security and political agenda. They argue that no other issues including the nuclear weapons programme can be properly addressed without human rights issues being discussed. It is an unproven idea that human rights criticisms of North Korea can jeopardise South Korea’s cooperative relationship with the North (p. 148). Likewise, the zero-sum thinking about pressing for human rights and denuclearisation negotiations has obstructed the U.S. to make any significant progress on both fronts (p. 159). It is clear from the introduction that the objective of raising human rights issues is not to delegitimise or undermine the regime in the North (p. 2). The authors call for Washington and Seoul to engage North Korea bilaterally and multilaterally to improve its human rights situation in the North.
The book consists of 11 chapters and is divided into four sections with an introduction. The contributors attempt to address the challenges of promoting North Korean human rights at international and domestic levels and to answer questions about how to balance human rights and security. The first two parts focus on the role of the United Nations (UN) and information in promoting North Korean human rights. In Chapter 2, Justice Michael Kirby highlights the process and challenges of writing a report for the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in North Korea. In the subsequent chapter, Joon Oh explains different levels of measures the UN can take. Peter Yeo and Ryan Kaminski examine the U.S. government’s role at the UN. Chapter 4 calls for a restoration of the U.S. leadership at the UN to address the human rights situat-ion in North Korea. In Chapter 5, Minjung Kim explains South Korean non-governmental organisations’ efforts to reach North Korea, as well as the political and institutional challenges they face. In Chapters 6 and 7, Nat Kretchun and Martyn Williams, respectively, discuss changes in the information environment in North Korea and its responses to the flow and spread of outside information.
The next two parts address the question of balancing human rights and security. Tae-Ung Baik argues that human rights must be improved to establish a stable inter-Korean relationship in Chapter 8. In a similar vein, Victor Cha contends that pressing for North Korean human rights does not necessarily jeopardise denuclearisation negotiations, calling for integrating human rights into the U.S. strategy towards the regime in Chapter 9. In Chapter 10, Sean King discusses West German experiences of dealing with East Germany, arguing that South Korea should prioritise North Koreans’ rights and their contact with the outside world. In Chapter 11, Thomas Fingar discusses the difficulties and challenges of integrating North Korean human rights into broader foreign policy, suggesting that the human rights objectives and strategies must be clarified and connected to achieving higher priority goals.
Although this book’s integrative approach to the relationship between human rights and security is novel, there remain unresolved questions about balancing the two objectives. First, the book does not fully address what aspects of human rights should be prioritised and how they should be integrated into negotiating with North Korea. It is important because the North Korean regime would differently respond to the issues of humanitarian, economic, and social rights, and political and civil rights, which can affect the ease and speed of negotiations. The integrative approach would need a long-term plan with tactical strategies on when and how more difficult questions of political and civil rights are raised and discussed. It would allow the U.S. and South Korean governments to have consistent North Korean policies and stable domestic support for engagement.
This book’s other missing puzzle is China. The book does not discuss China’s approach towards the relationship between human rights and security in North Korea. Beijing has been involved in addressing North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. On the human rights front, however, China is more concerned with its border control than North Korean refugees and does not respect the non-refoulment principle. Due to the international salience of its domestic human rights abuses, China is less likely to support the discussion involving political and civil rights in North Korea. China’s lukewarm stance on or opposition to the integrative approach to achieving the two objectives will be a challenge to the U.S. and South Korea. Given the Chinese influence on the North Korean economy and security, it will be crucial to secure Chinese cooperation to devise and implement integrative policies towards North Korea.
The past experiences of nuclear negotiations and the strong connection between human rights and security suggest that any breakthrough of the current nuclear stalemate will be likely to fail without addressing human rights abuses in North Korea. Although the specificities of balancing the two objectives are underexamined, The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security reignites our discussion about the relationship between human rights and security in North Korea, calling for a new, creative, and strategic blueprint to bring peace and stability to the Korean Peninsula.