Frequently Asked Questions

Contents
GENERAL AWARENESS
•  Where is North Korea?
•  Why did I not know about this earlier?
•  How has the international community allowed these atrocities to occur?

HUMAN RIGHTS
•  How does Kim Jong Il maintain power?
•  Why are the North Korean mass-starvations of the last two decades considered crimes against humanity, rather than famines?

REFUGEES
•  What is China’s Role?
•  Why is China deporting North Koreans?

TAKING ACTION NOW
•  What are the international community’s most tangible and realistic steps forward to help the North Korean people?

GENERAL AWARENESS

Where is North Korea?
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Why did I not know about this earlier?
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There are several likely reasons for misinformation and a lack of awareness regarding the human rights atrocities in North Korea.

1. Regional Priorities: Events in certain regions of the world often garner more attention from the international community than others. Differential treatment of various regions stems partly from political and practical issues, including:
   • (a) Limitations on the voices of Diaspora or dispersed communities (e.g., Korean and Korean-Americans in the United States)
   • (b) Constraints formed from the relationship between national resources and geo-strategic and political interests
   • (c) Cost-benefit of raising awareness in the region (i.e., organizations may direct their investments or attention to certain regions because awareness and urgency for a certain region endorses their work; organizations may not be able to garner the support and funding necessary if they focus on de-prioritized crises.
2. Limited Coverage in Schools: National education systems throughout the world, particularly in Inter-America and Europe, generally do not emphasize the historical events and context of the Korean War or offer in-depth studies of Korea’s history and culture.
3. Lack of Publicity Surrounding Aid, Services, and Policy Decisions: Most governmental agencies and human rights organizations working on this issue publish invaluable expert information and offer imperative services to the North Korean people. However, this information and these services are often unpublicized and not as readily accessible to the public, as most services are provided directly to the North Korean people and discretely circulated among policy makers.
4. Fear and Uncertainty: While most struggling regions welcome international aid and investment, North Korea alienates foreign assistance and involvement. Remaining antagonistic and volatile, North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Il, closes North Korea off to aid and leverages its nuclear arsenal in attempts to terrorize the world community. Such isolationism, volatility, and nuclear resources understandably make policy-makers wary of addressing North Korea’s human rights violations. There are no “easy wins” in North Korea. Finding a solution will be (and has been) difficult. Hence, North Korea is kept on the perpetual back-burner. However, these facts do not mean that action should not be taken, or that human rights in North Korea cannot or should not be a global priority.
5. Overwhelming Focus on North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: Human rights in North Korea have not been incorporated into international negotiations regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Accordingly, the media and world community have compartmentalized nuclear weapons and human rights in North Korea, when, in reality, they are deeply intertwined.
6. Relationships across East Asia: Unlike Africa, Europe, and Inter-America, Asia does not have an international regional human rights court, commission, covenant, or strong continental coalition. The absence of an international human rights body in Asia – and, more specifically, in East Asia – thus disadvantages Asian countries from the benefits of a regional arbiter or treaty body enshrined with the mandate to address and confront human rights atrocities. In the North Korean context, the absence of a regional human rights body thus levels human rights advancement and protection to the responsibility and autonomy of individual, Asian states. Furthermore, the politics among East Asian countries, albeit diplomatic, are complicated and strained by historic conflicts and competition. Diplomatic, yet tenuous, relationships between East Asian countries further marginalize human rights protection and accountability onto the governments of perpetrator states, as East Asian countries do not want to interfere into the practices of other states, in fear of reciprocal interference and regional conflict. The lack of a regional human rights body and regional wariness towards human rights interventions and challenges thus quiets human rights discourse in East Asia, structurally and institutionally silencing North Korea’s human rights crisis.
7. The Korean War: The Korean War involved a split within the international community, a rivalry between democracy and communism, an ideological divide. Essentially, after the Second World War, Japan abandoned its occupation of the Korean peninsula. A politically divided peninsula, post-conflict Korea was supported by communist nations in the North (Russia and China) and by democratic nations from the West (the United States). The Korean War was thus a conflict between Korean political factions, as well as a war between international ideologies. The War ended in stalemate at the “38th parallel,” which is the current border or De-Militarized Zone (“DMZ”), between North and South Korea. The United States, under the leadership of President Truman, strategically decided not to press north of the 38th parallel, despite urgings from the then-commanding General of the United States Army, Douglas MacArthur, to continue fighting for a unified Korean peninsula. To some, the division of a once-unified Korea is seen as a loss. While the international ideological divide between communism and democracy has disintegrated over the years, the history of the Korean War remains sensitive. North and South Korea have yet to formally sign a peace treaty, signifying that the two factions are technically still at war. Such sensitivity has silenced discussion of the Korean War and the malignant trajectory of the North Korean government, particularly in the United States.
8. Isolation/Lack of Intelligence: It is difficult for the outside world to access information about present-day experiences in North Korea. Intelligence regarding the events in particular regions of the country is especially difficult to obtain because the North Korean government sensors foreign visits and misrepresents its national reality. Misleading the international community, North Korean government “minders,” or surveillance agents, escort diplomats and foreign tourists to the wealthiest and most pristine areas of the country. The North Korean government employs these same practices to control and monitor the visits of international aid workers. Because of these selective and misleading visits, members of the international community rarely have the opportunity to witness or see evidence of North Korea’s human rights violations. However, these violations undeniably occur and have culminated to the world’s worst human rights crisis today.

How has the international community allowed these atrocities to occur?
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International Paralysis: In addition to the aforementioned widespread unawareness about the human rights violations in North Korea, international paralysis also prevents the world community from taking immediate action and preventative measures against the North Korean human rights crisis. Such international paralysis results from the following:

1. North Korea’s Specific Context: Many struggling nations that face food deficits accept foreign aid with open arms, and distribute such aid to their hungry people. North Korea, however, rejects most foreign assistance and distributes the limited aid that it accepts to its military and elite class. Additionally, North Korea, unlike other nations in which crimes against humanity occur, is highly isolated state. North Korea is neither accessible by bordering nations or by United Nations peacekeepers, nor does North Korea provide its population with means of communication outside of its borders. North Korean residents – the majority of which are malnourished and have no access to electricity –, are prevented and intimidated from communicating with the outside world. Furthermore, while human rights atrocities occur in times of both political stability and instability, human rights violations that occur during times of political conflict are arguably more open to external intervention and thus, more manageable to confront. For example, in the midst of civil conflict or the absence of a “state” or political leadership, it is arguably more likely that the United Nations and the international community will intervene because the absence of leadership both allows and necessitates international support. Conversely, when an established government – no matter how inadequate or inhumane –, perpetrates human rights violations, the international community is more hesitant to counter and challenge the acts of a state’s established leadership because of international premises of state sovereignty – the right of states to govern themselves. Although North Korea has been categorized by the Fund for Peace as a “failed state,” the longstanding dynasty of both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il represent an established governmental system. However, in light of heightened globalization, the concept of a “failed state,” and the doctrine of the “responsibility to protect,” past principles of state sovereignty have begun to evolve, placing responsibility and ownership on the world community to intervene in times of crisis.
2. Politics Surrounding the International Issue of North Korea: Politics frequently hinder the international community’s ability to take proactive steps toward remedying the human rights situation in North Korea. Deep tensions from the Korean War, North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons, uncertainty as to the success of non-violent advocacy, and concern regarding the repercussions of taking unilateral action against North Korea deter effective international action.
3. Politics within the United Nations’ Human Rights Council: The Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN) – formerly known as the Commission on Human Rights – is the United Nations’ human rights body. The Human Rights Council consists of member states responsible for identifying and addressing human rights atrocities across the globe. Through its Special Rapporteurs, the Human Rights Council is invaluable in investigating and monitoring human rights violations. However, the Human Rights Council faces significant challenges in compelling action because member states have been historically hesitant to confront the human rights records of other member states, particularly when they fear reciprocal investigation into their own borders. In 2006, under the leadership of then- United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the United Nations General Assembly voted to reform the UN’s human rights body to address the politically charged dynamics and discord embedded within the United Nations’ former Commission on Human Rights. Reforms included the implementation of a Universal Periodic Review of member states that is not initiated by other member states, changes in the new Council’s member state selection process, more frequent Council meetings, and a Working Group to respond to complaints filed to the Council by victims of human rights violations. Despite the acknowledgment of the politicized nature of the Council, and subsequent reforms, the Council still continues to operate with great sensitivity to political relationships between and across countries. For example, China, Russia, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia are members of the Human Rights Council, despite their grave human rights records, and only time will reveal whether or not the Council will challenge the human rights records of its member states. However, as the reforms have been implemented relatively recently, the Council may continue to address politicization and work towards more effective human rights advocacy moving forward.
4. The Nature of International Law: Although the United Nations (UN) is a community of nation-states that respect the value of a world order, the UN’s authority over violations of international law is often contingent upon the acquiescence of, and recognition by, states that become party to the UN’s treaties or conventions. The authority of international law is thus based upon the resolve of nation-states in ensuring compliance across the world community, as well as the openness of violating states in fulfilling their international obligations. In fact, legal scholars debate whether international laws have any “teeth” – or inherent power –, questioning whether the UN would be able to hold nation-states accountable for their actions without their acquiescence and recognition. Some members of the international community believe that without a “UN Military” the organization will never have an independent ability to enforce international law. However, the UN has increased its autonomous authority over human rights crises and other violations of international law by imposing economic sanctions and establishing judicial institutions, such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. However, prosecutions through the International Criminal Court must be suggested or referred by the United Nations Security Council or by victim states, and the International Court of Justice operates with the acquiescence of states that have recognized the jurisdiction of the court. North Korea has not signed the Rome Statute, the international treaty of the International Criminal Court, nor is it likely that North Korea will recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. However, the International Criminal Court may still investigate crimes against humanity perpetrated in North Korea, if such investigations are referred by the United Nations Security Council, and approved by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Therefore, without significant international resolve, the international system by its nature will not be able to confront North Korea’s human rights crisis. For this reason, the United Nations must work to garner support from its member states to confront and mitigate the North Korean human rights crisis.

HUMAN RIGHTS

How does Kim Jong Il maintain power?
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To understand how Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s current dictator, maintains power, it is imperative to understand the following factors:

1. The History of Korean Oppression: The Korean peninsula has faced years of oppression from external powers, including China, Russia, and most recently, Japan. In the early 1900s, Japan attempted to implement a cultural genocide in Korea. Japanese efforts to control the Korean peninsula aimed to eradicate the Korean language, Korean family names, and Korean cultural practices. Korean men were coerced into enlisting as Japanese soldiers in World War II. Korean women were captured as sex slaves (known to many as the pejorative euphemism “comfort women”) in military rape camps until the end of the second World War. To some extent, North Korea’s history enabled Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il to normalize and perpetuate oppression, hierarchy, and non-entitlement in the North Korean experience.
2. Oppression in North Korea Today: Today, significant remnants of North Korea’s history of oppression remain. The North Korean people are oppressed through limitations and denials of basic human rights, including the right to food, bodily integrity, free movement, freedom from violence, privacy, and free thought. However, hierarchies of class, lineage or blood line, age, and sex, further silence and disable certain portions of the population even more than others. For example, regions of North Korea thought to house dissenting citizens, were targeted, closed off, and denied food aid during the 1990s. Family members extending three generations from an alleged defector are often imprisoned for their ancestor or relative’s alleged dissent. North Korea’s young adult population is required to serve in North Korea’s military, as Kim Jong Il attempts to disable and monitor able-bodied men and women to ensure their loyalty to his regime. Additionally, there have been several reports of forced abortions, particularly for North Korean women who are pregnant with children of Chinese descent. And last, rare photographs taken by aid workers in the late 1990s and early 2000s depict groups of male children and very few female children, suggesting that male children are prioritized by the state in terms of access to food, medical care, international aid, and housing, as the orphanages and educational facilities that aid workers were able to visit represented North Korea’s “better” facilities. Kim Jong Il’s hierarchical society thus continues to oppress both broadly and specifically, enabling Kim Jong Il to control both the generation population, and to target and subordinate specific populations.
3. Fear: In an attempt to deter dissent and paralyze community empowerment among the North Korean people, Kim Il Sung – and later Kim Jong Il – propagated ideas of an all-powerful, ever-present, all-knowing government. Pictures of Kim Jong Il, alongside pictures of his father, Kim Il Sung, appear in households, schools, and public arenas. The images present the dictators as gods to be worshiped. Many commodities and internally published materials also bare Kim Jong Il’s image, reminding North Koreans that their leader is supreme and always watching. The mistreatment, tampering, or discarding of any papers or objects that bare Kim Jong Il’s photograph or name are criminalized and punished. In fact, human rights organizations have begun to leverage the criminalization of discarding Kim Jong Il’s photograph by placing images of Kim Jong Il on leaflets distributed via balloon to the North Korean people and via fax to the North Korean elite. This tactic aims to ensure that North Koreans will read, rather than discard. these informational leaflets. Furthermore, signs of “defection,” which have included even the most benign activities like coping mechanisms to deal with severe hunger (e.g. eating tree bark or mud), have been met with imprisonment in internment camps. In turn, North Koreans are feared into deifying Kim Jong Il as their “great leader.”
4. Extreme Poverty: During the Twentieth Century, the Korean peninsula struggled with severe poverty, limited food resources, and an undeveloped infrastructure. Starvation was common. Furthermore, governmental regimes throughout the last sixty years have isolated the North Korean populace from the rest of the world, preventing its people from realizing the savage inadequacies of the country’s economic and social life. For most North Korean families, the quality of life of today’s human rights crisis resembles the experience of generations past. Thus, the historic hunger and need that has pervaded North Korea for the last century has enabled Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship.
5. Hunger: Lack of food affects our cognitive and physical development. Starvation and severe malnutrition disable humans from working, farming, and organizing, making revolt nearly impossible. Accordingly, denying food to the North Korean people has been an extremely effective, though horrifying, method for Kim Jong Il to preserve his power and control the North Korean masses.
6. Required Military Service: North Korean men and women must serve in the military for anywhere between eight and nineteen years. Mandatory military service benefits the North Korean government in two key ways. First, required service builds North Korea’s military power. Second, mandatory military service controls the country’s young-adult population. Propagandized military training, which further indoctrinates fear of state surveillance, discourages the most active and able-bodied members of North Korea’s population (15-30 year-old men and women) from organizing, mobilizing, dissenting, resisting, and revolting.
7. The Communist Ideology: During the Korean War, the United States supported South Korea, while Communist China and Russia supported North Korea. Though both sets of external powers assisted their respective regions. These powers also exploited the Korean peninsula as an ideological battleground. As democracy seeped into the South, the North followed China and Russia’s Communist ideals. Communism, though theoretically egalitarian, was implemented in North Korea with volatility, inhumanity, and disregard for human life. With state control over nearly all aspects of North Korean life, including food distribution, education, media, markets, and the economy, North Korea’s ideology facilitated Kim Il Sung’s (1912-1994) deification and later Kim Jong Il’s deification. Each leader became “God,” the omnipresent state, and the “great,” “dear” leader to North Korea’s oppressed people.
8. Isolation: North Korea’s isolation from the outside world exacerbates its human rights situation and enables Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship. North Korea’s isolation largely prevents the international community from understanding what is happening within North Korea. The isolation also prevents the world community from communicating with the North Korean masses, from offering aid, support, and intervention, and from relaying the world’s possibilities to the North Korean people. By isolating the North Korean people, Kim Jong Il forces North Koreans to become more dependent on their government and less aware of their human rights and individual entitlements. In doing so, Kim Jong Il strengthens his dictatorship.
9. Kim Jong Il is not Kim Il Sung: Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il’s father, began his dictatorship after the Korean War. Kim Il Sung’s regime established internment camps, executed alleged traitors, promoted his own deification, isolated North Korea from the world, developed nuclear weapons, disabled resistance, and failed to invest in the North Korean people. However, it is important to understand. that Kim Jong Il’s regime significantly differs from his father’s regime. That is, Kim Jong Il’s regime, beginning in 1994 with the death of Kim Jong Il’s father, Kim Il Sung, made critical decisions that killed 20 percent of North Korea’s population and contributed to the death of nearly 3 million North Koreans in the late 1990s. While Russia and China began to change their economic and political models in the 1980’s, Kim Jong Il failed to identify North Korea’s governmental shortcomings and to respond to the burgeoning needs of his people. Though Kim Jong Il’s father set the stage for North Korea’s current crisis, Kim Jong Il is responsible for the mass-starvations of the 1990s that constitute crimes against humanity, for North Korea’s refusal to receive food and economic development aid, and for the North Korean government’s far more brutal, terrifying, and inhumane violence against the North Korean people.
10. Culture: Korean culture is based largely on diligence, education, and family. Kim Jong Il leverages these Korean values to maintain power over the North Korean people. The North Korean government controls education and exploits North Korea’s public education system as propaganda by disseminating information that further deifies Kim Jong Il and misleads North Korean youth. Kim Jong Il also exploits strong familial ties with threats, telling people that their dissent, no matter how slight, will result in the imprisonment of their families for as many as three future generations. For example, the children and grandchildren of accused defectors from the Korean War face persecution for their family’s alleged “treason.” Under Kim Jong Il’s definition, “treason” can include speech and even thoughts against the dictator.

Why are the North Korean mass-starvations of the last two decades considered crimes against humanity, rather than famines?
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1. The term “famine” historically refers to a food deficit caused and perpetuated by a natural disaster or uncontrollable circumstances. Today, natural famines are very rare because food aid organizations, globalization, and national responses to food deficits are now available and able to control and prevent starvation. Because natural famines no longer cause hunger crises, mass-starvation in today’s world results from implacable and inhumane leadership decisions and inadequate food distribution by governments.
2. Though North Korea’s climate presents agricultural challenges, the land is fully capable of producing enough food to avoid mass-starvation. However, instead of investing in the agricultural industry and planting crops conducive to the country’s geography and climate, the North Korean government refuses to update its equipment and insists on growing crops that are incompatible with the soil. The North Korean government also declines to import foreign goods and food. And, more disturbingly, while the government occasionally accepts international food aid from the United Nations (UN), China, South Korea, and the United States (US), Kim Jong Il does not distribute the food to North Korea’s starving people. Instead, the dictator is known to re-label the international food aid to mislead North Koreans into believing that his regime has produced it and then distributes the food to the country’s military and elite social class.
3. Few of the nation’s starving masses ever receive international support. The weak and malnourished citizens become enslaved by their hunger and the prospect of food. Thus, Kim Jong Il uses food as a power. Hunger becomes apolitical tool with which to silence dissenters and control the masses. In this way, Kim Jong Il purposefully denies food to North Korean people, creating mass-starvation and constituting crimes against humanity.

REFUGEES

What is China’s Role?
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China acts in the following uncooperative and unlawful ways:

1. Many North Koreans attempt to flee across North Korea’s border into the frontier-lands of China, in desperate search for asylum. China classifies these North Korean refugees as “economic migrants,” rather than refugees. This means that China does not afford North Korean refugees with the protections mandated by the Refugee Convention (formally known as the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees; entered into force on April 22, 1954). As a result, China deports refugees back to North Korea, rather than offering them safe haven from a “well-founded fear” of persecution by the North Korean government. Once deported by the Chinese government, North Korean refugees face execution or imprisonment without trial or charge in North Korea’s internment camps.
2. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has repeatedly sought to enter the Chinese frontier-lands where many hiding North Koreans die of starvation and are forced into sex and human trafficking. Instead of allowing the UNHCR to help North Korea’s refugees, China refuses to grant UNHCR access to the North Korea-China border, thereby perpetuating and authorizing the violence, trafficking, and exploitation of North Koreans that occurs in China, just north of North Korea.
3. Chinese police patrol the borderlands, arresting North Korean refugees and deporting them. The Chinese government has also been accused of receiving “kick-backs” and incentives from the North Korean government for endorsing its unlawful deportation policy. Reports further suggest that the Chinese government, in turn, monetarily pays it officials for each individual they deport.
4. Chinese police guard the gates of foreign embassies in Beijing, arresting North Korean refugees who seek asylum within the embassies. In arresting refugees at this point in their struggle, the Chinese government is deporting individuals who have survived the intensely arduous trek of border-crossing and traveling from the North Korea-Chinese border to Beijing, only to be captured and deported upon reaching the gates of embassy safe-havens. Upon arrival in North Korea, these deported refugees face internment camps or death.

Why is China deporting North Koreans?
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China’s uncooperative and unlawful deportation of North Koreans derives from several policy theories.

1. China posits that it cannot help North Korean refugees because such support would welcome an influx of “economic migrants” that would collapse China’s economy. This argument, however, does not justify China’s hostility towards North Korean refugees or its uncooperative approach towards international organizations, The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), non-governmental organizations, and specific nations and embassies that openly offer aid to North Korean refugees, such as Cambodia, Laos, South Korea, and the United States. The cost of China’s cooperation with the international community’s efforts to help North Korean refugees would be minimal, evidencing China’s support for North Korea’s regime of terror.
2. China does not want North Korea to thrive because the Chinese government seeks to maintain its domination among East Asian markets and to eliminate competition.
3. China does not want North and South Korea to reunify. If the Korean peninsula is reunified, it will become an additional competitor within East Asian markets. Additionally, a reunified Korea, in the eyes of China, may pose a threat to China’s dominant position in East Asia.

TAKING ACTION NOW

What are the international community’s most tangible and realistic steps forward to help the North Korean people?
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1. Negotiate with China to stop deporting North Korean refugees and to allow international and national organizations to transport refugees to other countries where they may seek safety and pursue life.
2. Incorporate North Korean human rights into all policy negotiations with North Korea. Human rights in North Korea must be prioritized.
3. Develop international and national approaches to North Korea, given its likely and upcoming change in leadership.
4. Educate and spread awareness to the international community about the human rights crisis in North Korea.