PEACE AS A NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHT

Abstract

This essay analyzes the “human rights” framework that evolved, paradoxically, as a way to address human rights and human security needs in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) by withholding humanitarian assistance from that country. This framework turns on the premise that the North Korean “regime” is the source of the society's ills, that it is unwilling to implement radical reforms needed to restore its economy for fear that they would undermine its rule, and that it maintains its grip upon society by means of propaganda and repression. Regime collapse, some argue, will thus lead to a better life for the North Korean people. Informed by this view, in combination with “intelligence” sources that predict the imminent collapse of the “regime,” U.S. policy has been loath to provide any assistance, including food aid, that might prolong the life of the state. By viewing North Korean society today in the context of its historical experience before and since the decline of its economy starting in the early 1990s, this essay challenges assumptions that underlie the “human rights” argument for regime collapse. It explores alternative reasons for the society's unexpected survival and argues that analysis of North Korean society in abstraction from the state of war in which it is situated, fails to offer realistic options for addressing the human security of the North Korean people.

Notes

¹Used hereafter without quotation marks.

²The amendment passed the House, 15 June 2011. See Royce 2011.

³Cirilli 2013.

⁴Hill 2011.

⁵Cha 2012.

⁶Choe 2013. Note: South Korea is now permitting humanitarian food aid to NK ($7 M): see www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/south-korea-offers-aid-to-north-korea-697297/ (accessed 8 October 2013).

⁷Ahn 2005, 13.

⁸Brun and Hersh 1976, 130.

⁹Ahn 2005, 1.

¹⁰Ireson 2006, 6.

¹¹Lankov 2011.

¹²Strong 1949.

¹³Smith 2005, 77.

¹⁴Zellweger 2012.

¹⁵Kim 1969.

¹⁶Ibid., 316.

¹⁷Kim 1960, 316.

¹⁸See Natsios 1999 and Mansourav 2010.

¹⁹Haggard and Noland 2007, 204.

²⁰Everard 2011.

²¹Kim 1945.

²²When the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989 and China increased the price of its oil exports in 1991, North Korea found itself without sufficient oil to operate farm equipment, produce fertilizer, and run its factories. Moreover its reliance upon trade and barter with the socialist bloc left it without adequate foreign exchange reserves or international credit with which to import energy and emergency supplies of food to sustain its economy and adequately feed its population. See Noland and Haggard 2007, 210.

²³Kim, Il Sung 1975, 425.

²⁴Liem 2008.

²⁵Hong 2011.

²⁶Bello and Baviera 2010, 34.

²⁷Ibid., 33.

²⁸Reed, 2013.

²⁹Ibid.

³⁰Ibid. The four other NGOs are Christian Friends of Korea, Global Resource Services, Mercy Corps, and World Vision.

³¹Ibid.

³²Ireson 2012.

³³Manyin an Nitkin 2012.

³⁴Haggard and Noland 2007, Table 6.2. U.S. Food for Talks, 1995-2005.

³⁵The United States has not provided any aid to North Korea since 2009. See Manyin and Niktin 2012.

³⁶Ibid.

³⁷Mazzetti 2006.

³⁸Haggard and Noland 2011, 77.

³⁹Haggard and Noland 2011.

⁴⁰Ireson 2010.

⁴¹Ireson 2006, 7.

⁴²Woo-Cumings 2002.

⁴³The morphology of North Korea's famine years is well documented by analysts including Meredith Woo-Cumings, Hazel Smith, John Feffer, Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, and James Williams, David Von Hippel, and Peter Hayes, and many others. See Woo-Cumings 2002; Smith 2005; Feffer 2006; Haggard and Noland 2007; Williams et al. 2000.

⁴⁴Feffer 2006.

⁴⁵Pfeiffer 2006, 43.

⁴⁶Ireson 2006, 7.

⁴⁷Woo-Cumings 2002, 3.

⁴⁸GIEWS 2013.

⁴⁹Kang 2011.

⁵⁰Cumings 2004, 15.

⁵¹Ahn 2005, 30.