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Robert King

Distinguished Fellow
Korea Economic Institute of America
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About Robert King

Ambassador Robert King is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) and a Senior Advisor to the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to joining KEI, he was the Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues following confirmation by the United States Senate in November 2009. Ambassador King worked as the leading U.S. official on human rights and humanitarian affairs for North Korea. Prior to his appointment, he worked on Capitol Hill for 25 years. He was concurrently Staff Director of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives (2007-2008), Democratic Staff Director of the Committee (2001-2007), and had held various professional staff positions on the Committee since 1993. He has authored five books and more than 40 articles on international relations. Ambassador King holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

You’ve probably heard the Korean War referred to as an unfinished conflict – but that’s not just a reference to the frozen war on the Peninsula. The sudden outbreak of…

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Region: Asia

August 7, 2020

Should the international community suspend advocacy for human rights in favor of cooperation with odious regimes to fight the COVID-19 pandemic? This appears upon first glance like a trade-off, but…

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April 10, 2020

On April 22, Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled an organization chart and released an official statement that journalists described as a “sweeping plan” to restructure the Department of State. Reflecting the hyperbolic rhetoric of the second Donald Trump administration, the statement said, “In its current form, the department is bloated, bureaucratic and unable to…

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May 6, 2025

On March 6, 2025, The Washington Post published a full-page article entitled “Abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea: Decades after their disappearance, only one parent generation left.” This was not a traditional news story from The Post, and the paper carefully and explicitly made clear that this was not generated internally but by the…

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Region: Indo-Pacific

March 26, 2025

On February 4, President Donald Trump issued another in the blizzard of his now familiar executive orders. Among those signed that day was one entitled “Withdrawing the United States from and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to all United Nations Organizations.” The document specifies that the United States…

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February 13, 2025

For over two decades, the issue of human rights has been a key component of US policies toward North Korea. The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 and the 2008 reauthorization of the legislation were both approved and enforced by then President George W. Bush. President Barack Obama signed into law the 2012 extension…

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January 23, 2025