Human Rights

This PDF is the full publication and contains all of the following sections: KEI Board of Directors KEI Advisory Council About the Korea Economic Institute of America Preface by KEI…

August 2009 saw an abrupt “about-face” in North-South relations on the Korean peninsula. The month began with former president Bill Clinton’s historic meeting with Chairman Kim Jong-il and concluded with…

By Mark Tokola Why won’t North Korea admit that it has any cases of Covid-19? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs continues to assert that North Korea is “a clean land” with no coronavirus infections. This strikes outside observers as extremely unlikely, given the large number of cases in neighboring China and South Korea. Furthermore, North…

By Robert R. King Japan has backed away from criticism of North Korea for its human rights violations.  In the past Tokyo was highly critical because North Korean intelligence officials abducted Japanese citizens from Japanese soil and kept them in North Korea against their will for intelligence purposes in the 1970s and refused to release…

By Robert R. King North Korean “defectors” or refugees are one of the most visible and tragic consequences of the North Korean government’s abysmal policies denying its own citizens internationally acknowledged human rights, including the right of freedom of movement.  The decision to leave North Korea is not easy, and it is one that has…

By Troy Stangarone In response to the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, North Korea has closed its border to tourists and commerce with China and Russia to prevent the spread of the disease in North Korea. But helping North Korea address the crisis would not only be the right thing to do, it could…