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…

In March 2025, South Korea admitted for the first time that the government doctored paperwork and faked the identities of at least 367 children between 1964 and 1999 in a bid for political and economic gains. South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), an independent body established by the government to investigate historical injustices, described…

On May 20, 2025, the UN General Assembly held its first-ever “high-level session” devoted to the human rights abuses of North Korea. This latest action ups the ante in calling for reform of North Korea’s abysmal human rights record. Every year since 2004, the General Assembly has adopted resolutions criticizing North Korea and calling for…

Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) are two news agencies funded by the U.S. federal government that provide information to global audiences, especially those in countries without free and independent media. But in mid-March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that targeted their funding. Their parent agency, the United States Agency…

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…