A new approach to address human rights in North Korea

By J.R. Kim | President, KCPC

1. Introduction

For a long time, the international community, including South Korea and the United States, has frequently used human rights issues as a means to "criticize and pressure" North Korea.

Focusing on the abuse of civil and political rights by the Communist regime, the international community has raised the issues focusing on condemning the undemocratic nature of the

North Korean regime and called for punishment of the perpetrators.

Such an approach, however, caused a backlash from the Pyongyang regime and, subsequently, there have been limitations in substantially improving the human rights conditions in North Korea.

The international community's approach to North Korean human rights certainly reflected the ideology and values of Western liberal democracies advocating respect for universal human rights.

It is, however, true that there has long been a certain degree of bias in outsiders' views on human rights conditions in North Korea.

The biases were often derived from the structural limitations existing in the investigations of human rights conditions in North Korea.

Since it is practically impossible to conduct the investigation in North Korea, evaluating the human rights of North Koreans were made mostly relying on the testimonies of a small number of North Korean defectors.

Consequently, such limitations led to two types of bias: sampling bias and chronological bias.

The sampling bias stems from overlooking the fact that from a demographic perspective based on gender, age, class, or residence, North Korean defectors are a biased sample clearly unfit to represent the entire North Korean population.

Additionally, interpretation of the survey results focusing on the statements of few North Korean defectors with extreme experience of defection-arrest-repatriation-detention-and re-defection have amplified the bias.

Some news outlets exacerbated the situation with a media circus.

The chronological bias, on the other hand, was derived from the stereotypes on North Korea formed in the past, especially during the period of Arduous March in the mid-1990s, in the absence of the latest information on the human rights conditions in North Korea.

For many people around world, the first impression of Asia's small totalitarian country, which was first revealed to the outside world during its most difficult days in the mid-1990s following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Eastern socialist bloc, was so shocking that its afterimage still lingers vividly in their memory.

As a result, even after more than two and a half decades have passed since those days, people often overlook the fact that North Korea, too, has undergone changes in various fields of its society while the country's leadership was passed from Kim Jong-il to his own son Kim Jong-un.

In the absence of reliable statistics, it is estimated that the number of North Koreans leaving escaping their country, which began to rise in earnest in the mid-1990s, peaked in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

In the meantime, the number of North Koreans arrived in South Korea increased rapidly in the late 2000s, reaching its peak in 2009 when it approached 3,000 a year.

It was around this time, too, that the international community was flooded with reports on the human rights conditions in North Korea based on the testimonies made by these defectors.

The number of North Korean defectors, however, started to decline in 2012, when Kim Jong-un stepped up border control immediately after his rise to power. It has fallen even more sharply since 2020, when North Korean authorities shut down the border for coronavirus quarantine.

Large part of approximately 36,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea are thus ones arrived in South Korea more than five years ago.

Only about 10 percent of them have lived in the South less than five years. Even among those new comers, very few have left North Korea within last five years.

This is because it is very rare for North Koreans to find their ways into South Korea in the very year they escape from the North.

Most North Korean defectors leave North Korea and spend several years in China before entering the South.

Consequently, it is less likely that their testimonies would tell the "current" human rights conditions in North Korea.

Since the number of recent defectors is remarkably small, the statistical weight of the new survey results is relatively low.

Therefore, when added to the existing pool of statistics, the new results barely have significant impact on the existing perception of human rights in North Korea.

Even if there were no intentional distortion or selective compilation in gathering the survey results, a discrepancy between the survey results and the reality in North Korea is unavoidable due to investigation statistics not corrected for chronological biases and errors in interpreting such data, along with stereotypes from the Cold War.

2. International Mechanisms for Improving Human Rights in North Korea

It was in the late 1990s that the international community began to pay full attention to the human rights conditions in North Koreans.

In 1997, the 49th United Nations Subcommittee on Human Rights adopted the first human rights resolution on North Korea.

And in 2003, the first North Korean human rights resolution was adopted at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).

In the following year, the United Nations appointed a special rapporteur on North Korean human rights to investigate the human rights situation in North Korea and report the results back to the United Nations.

In 2014, the United Nations established the Commission of Inquiry (COI) under the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which succeeded the UNCHR, and collected and analyzed vast amounts of data on North Korean human rights.

The COI concluded that various human rights violations were being committed in North Korea, and such acts constituted crimes against humanity under international law.

The Commission urged that the international community should refer these violations to the International Criminal Court or establish a temporary international court to handle them.

In the following year, United Nations Office of High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNOHCHR) opened a field office in Seoul to investigate and record the current status of human rights violations in North Korea by interviewing North Korean defectors arrived in the South.

Two years later, in 2017, focusing on the issue of accountability, the UNOHCHR established an Evidence and Information Repository in Geneva to preserve records and evidence of human rights abuses in North Korea, including testimonies and evidential documents collected from the Seoul office.

At the same time, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) used the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which deliberates on all UN member states every four and a half years, to point out human rights violations by North Korean authorities and urge them to improve their human rights conditions.

North Korea, which first responded to UPR deliberation in 2009, participated in it three times up to date, including 2014 and 2019.

Meanwhile, apart from the UN-level human rights mechanism, some countries have made efforts to raise North Korean human rights issues through their own measures.

For example, the United States enacted the North Korean Human Rights Act in 2004 to express interest in North Korean human rights and appointed an ambassador-level special envoy to take charge of the issues.

In addition, the State Department published human rights reports with a North Korean section every year.

The International Committee on Religious Freedom also continued to raise issues related to human rights in North Korea and urged the North Korean authorities to improve them.

Japan, too, enacted its own North Korean Human Rights Act in 2006, and the EU held bilateral dialogue with North Korea on the human rights twice in 2001 and 2003 while adopting its own resolution on North Korean human rights every year since 2003.

After years of debate between the ruling and opposition parties in the National Assembly, South Korea finally passed the North Korean Human Rights Act in 2016 and accordingly set up the North Korean Human Rights Record Center and the North Korean Human Rights Archives under the Ministry of Unification and the Ministry of Justice, respectively.

This reflected a new policy of improving fairness and accuracy through the intervention of government in conducting the North Korean human rights investigation which had long been commissioned to private agencies since early 1990.

At the same time, however, the government's monopoly on the North Korean human rights investigation raised concerns that the investigation could be distorted, interpretation could be influenced, or transparency could be compromised depending on changes in domestic political climate.

3. Proposals for a New Approach

Now, the international community needs to accurately grasp the reality of human rights condition in North Korea in its approach to the issue. More objective and realistic information is absolutely necessary before devising effective ways to substantially improve the human rights of North Korean people.

The international mechanism for improving human rights in North Korea, led by the United Nation, is generally deployed in the order of investigating and collecting data → analyzing collected data → pressuring North Korea through UN mechanism to improve its human rights conditions → disclosing results to the international society, raising interest, and urging the international community to respond.

In order to substantially improve human rights in North Korea, therefore, accurate and objective identification of the situation must be premised at the first stage.

The UN and those individual member states interested in improving North Korean human rights, including the U.S., Japan, the EU, and South Korea, need to investigate the human rights conditions in North Korea more accurately and transparently and disclose the information to dispel unnecessary misunderstandings and prejudices.

Only when the diagnosis is accurate can the correct prescription be made. And for accurate diagnosis, it is crucial to first grasp the patient's physical condition as it is.

Above all, the international community should focus on substantially improving the human rights of North Koreans.

To do so, we should approach the North Korean human rights issues on the basis of "cooperative pragmatism" that promotes and supports voluntary efforts by the North Korean authorities, rather than "hostile idealism" aimed at convicting the regime for not making such efforts.

The human rights issues should be used as a "priming water" rather than an obstacle to expand dialogue and cooperation with the North.

Projects aimed at promoting North Korean human rights have sufficient justifications as well as practical values for the international support even under sanctions against North Korea.

To improve human rights conditions in North Korea substantially, first, it is necessary to shift from a “dichotomous” approach to an "integrated" approach by balancing the emphasis on civil and political rights with the emphasis on social, economic, and cultural rights.

The focus should be placed on supporting the efforts of the North Korean authorities in terms of "promoting," not "improving," North Korean human rights.

If the latter has emphasized the need for external pressure on the premise that the North Korean regime is doing wrong, the former would call for assisting North Koreans in their efforts to make the country's human rights conditions better.

In practice, when social, economic, and cultural rights are promoted, the quality of life of North Koreans as a whole would be improved, the human rights awareness of North Korean authorities and residents would be enhanced, and eventually a structure of virtuous cycle that may lead to an improvement in civil and political rights could be created.

It is also true that the field of social, economic, and cultural rights is an area where we can more easily draw North Korea's cooperation than the field of civil and political rights.

Furthermore, when approaching North Korea on these issues, the international community should use alternative concepts such as "quality of life" and "people's happiness" rather than "human rights" to minimize its resistance.

It should also focus on rather specific rights such as "relieving discrimination against women" and "protecting children's rights" to draw maximum cooperation from the North Korean authorities.

Second, it is necessary to focus primarily on areas where North Korea has more readily responded to the discussion of human rights in the international community.

For instance, it has responded positively to accepting a total of 132 items, including four proposed by South Korea, realizing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and promoting the rights of socially underprivileged people, especially children, women, and the disabled.

In this context, the international community may need to link its humanitarian aid and development cooperation to the North with efforts to raise human rights awareness and promote human rights by the North Korean authorities.

In fact, despite some reservations, North Korea has listened to the criticisms by the international community.

In recent years, for example, North Korean authorities have taken steps to eradicate abuses in detention facilities, remove regulations such as arbitrary detention and house-to-house searches, guarantee court hearings, set up shelters for family abuse victims, and provide human rights education to teachers, doctors and government workers.

Third, in such a process, it will be more effective to promote a multilateral approach using the international human rights community rather than just insisting on governmental channels.

Rather than the US or South Korean government taking the lead, we need to adopt a "quiet" approach using private organizations specialized in promoting North Korean human rights.

It would be wise to diversify channels for interacting with North Korea by actively utilizing private capabilities.

To this end, resident international organizations and agencies in Pyongyang would be greatly helpful.

Rather than directly asking the North Korean authorities to improve human rights, one better way to do it would be these international organizations and agencies demand measures to improve human rights in specific areas linked to their specific assistance and step up the monitoring of the progress.

The U.S. and South Korean government could play a role in helping more diverse international agencies and private organizations participate in programs such as human rights education for North Koreans.

Fourth, rather than providing general support, the government should shift to a "surgical" support that targets the promotion of human rights for specific vulnerable groups by region, class, and age.

The appropriate targets for such pinpoint support would include treatment and surgery for children, the elderly, and those in poverty, and support for economic independence for women in the regions near the North Korean border with China.

According to the testimonies by North Korean defectors, one of the most serious human rights abuses in North Korea occurs to women defecting from North Hamgyong Province and Ryanggang Province while they are taking shelter in China or when they are arrested, repatriated, detained, and persecuted after defecting from North Korea through unauthorized border crossing or bride purchasing.

If the international community sets such specific goals and collaborates with individual countries interested in promoting them, it would be able to improve human rights conditions in North Korean more effectively.

Lastly, the South Korean government, which conducts a virtually "full" investigation of North Korean defectors entering the country, is in a position to collect the most updated information on human rights conditions in North Korea.

If the Korean government shares information acquired by its North Korean Human Rights Record Center with the international community, it would make an important contribution to making our collective efforts more effective in improving North Korean human rights.

If the newly launched South Korea's Yoon Suk-yeol government is willing to shift South Korea's policy on the North Korean human rights from a passive response to an active response, this could be a promising starting point.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of KCPC, its members, or affiliated persons and organizations.