North Korea Diplomacy in 2018 - A News Roundup

A roundup of some of the best analysis I’ve seen on North Korean diplomacy, the inter-Korea summit and the US-North Korea summit.

June 12, 2018 (Post-Summit Analysis)

• Victor and Sue Mi Terry provide their assessment of the summit. Victor also write an op-ed in the NY Times. Basically, as messy, idiosyncratic, and incomplete as the summit was, we're in the end still in a better place than before.
• My initial reactions were similar to Andrei Lankov's when I read the joint statement: is that it?
• Here's the idiotic propaganda video made by Trump about the choice North Korea can make. Definitely a must show for my students. To bad it fails to mention that the level of openness required to achieve such levels of investment in North Korea would jeopardize Kim's stronghold over his country. 
• Anna Fifield shares her notes, reflecting back a decade earlier when the NY Philharmonic visited North Korea, and the atmosphere of the summit today and whether the prospects for change are for real this time. 
  

May 30, 2018

·        Moon Jae-in's diplomatic acumen and delicately playing middle man in keeping US-NK summit alive.        

·     David Igantius on Trump's break-up letter and what the implications could have been. In retrospect, Trump was giving Kim a taste of his own medicine in walking away from talks. This shouldn't have been a complete surprise given the message coming from Trump days before the letter, and North's shifting tone and no-show to a meeting in Singapore. What's the meaning of this zig-zag approach to the Summit.

May 8, 2018

·        From Van Jackson on what Kim wants from Trump

·        Victor Cha on the success of the inter-Korea summit raising the stakes and expectations for US-North Korea meeting.

·        Anna Fifield on whether South Koreans believe peace talks with North Korea will be different this time

·        Victor Cha and Katrin Katz on The Right Way to Coerce North Korea. They take a pretty hardline stance, which some might criticize as unnecessarily escalating tensions.

·        Chung-in Moon, who advises the Moon Jae-in administration, with a much more optimistic view of the inter-Korea summit and the path to peace.

·        Moving away from diplomacy, Jung Pak, former CIA analyst and now at Brookings, offers a great profile of Kim Jong Un in her piece, The Education of Kim Jong Un

North Korea Updates and Hong Kong Travel

(Note: this post was drafted in late June). I returned last week from conferences, talks in San Diego, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Some brief thoughts and take-aways

I spent  24 hours in San Diego focused on North Korea. Much transpired in the two weeks afterwards, including the release and eventual death of American tourist Otto Warmbier which re-opened debates about engagement with North Korea, resulted in an expedited push for a tourist travel ban, and on the eve of  first the Trump-Moon summit, has created a lot of anxiety on the direction US-Korea policy will take. I weighed in on people-to-people engagement on the Peter Institute's Witness to Transformation blog, based on a longer academic study published in Asian Perspective. But the timing was (un)fortunate as it appeared the wee Warmbier was released. Here are a couple sides to the debate:

The case for engagement
- helps ordinary North Koreans, in the case of humanitarian oriented initatives
- permits contact between North Koreans and Americans for better understanding
- brings information to North Koreans about the outside which can have a trickle-down effect and longer term consequences (i.e. erode regime legitimacy)

The case for ending engagement and sanctions
- aids the regime
- engagement has not facilitated any meaningful change over twenty years
- signals displeasure at North Korea's actions and that bad behavior has consequences

Travel Ban
Otto Warmbier's death has sparked a debate about passing


Hong Kong was a somewhat of a disappointment and not what I had expected. This was partly a result of bad weather having arrived at the peak monsoon season which meant 100% rain and humidity. But at the risk of sounding like a colonial sympathizer, it was a lot less "Western" than I anticipated, meaning less English, having to rely more on cash, and feeling more of just another major city in China (like Shanghai) rather than a city controlled by the British for over a century. I couldn't help but wonder if this was partly a result of China's increasing perhaps inevitable reach into Hong Kong affairs despite the arrangement of relative Hong Kong autonomy reached with the British before the 1997 handover to China. Today's article in the WaPo summed my thoughts up perfectly:

What we are seeing now is the mainlandization of Hong Kong. It’s the gradual absorption of Hong Kong by the new sovereign. It’s the slow erosion of the separate culture and norms that have set it apart. And it’s the incremental marginalization of Hong Kong in the Chinese economy...Since the Occupy protests, China has shown an increasing propensity to meddle directly in Hong Kong’s affairs...What few predicted was Hong Kong’s slow-motion mainlandization. Hong Kong and China have been converging — just not in the direction many of us thought.

In a postscript to this, turned out many other observers had similar reactions in light of the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China. The New York Times published a great piece, "Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble." Here are a few other pieces:

• New York Times: Xi Delivers Tough Speech on Hong Kong, as Protests Mark Handover Anniversary
• New York Times op-ed by last governor of Hong Kong: Chris Patten: Did Beijing Betray Hong Kong?
• Victoria Hui  on WaPo MonkeyCage on an excellent run down of issues on Hong Kong at the 20th anniversary: 20 years ago, China promised Hong Kong ‘1 country, 2 systems.’ So much for promises.

Pyongyang University of Science and Technology

I know or have met several people associated with the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). Two weeks go, they detained Tony Kim, a U.S. citizen who had been teaching accounting at PUST. Now they've detained another American, Kim Hak-song. Both are alleged to have committed "hostile acts" against the regime. This bring the total number of Americans held captive in North Korea to four.

photo: Ian Wells, PUST websiite

My own thoughts about PUST have always been ambivalent. The people I know who've taught at PUST have shared really amazing stories about their time at the school which demonstrate the human (and for Christians, the Holy) spirit at work, and the potential for people-to-people exchanges with North Koreans. But at the same time, PUST as an enterprise which is 100% funded by foreigners, raises so many questions about the status of an overtly Christian school operating inside a repressive regime. 

Suki Kim, who worked as an undercover author posing as an English teacher, penned an op-ed questioning whether PUST is propping up the regime. Kim has offered measured criticism against PUST, even implying that PUST may be providing students technical skills which can be transferred for military purposes (which I think is way off mark). 

But she also writes in her op-ed, " Yet there is also a positive aspect to PUST. From living with these foreigners on such an intimate basis, these young, isolated North Koreans are exposed to the glimpses of the outside world and its freedom, which might eventually provide hopes for North Korea’s future."

I wish PUST the best, but news of recent detained citizens connected to PUST is certainly troubling, both from a human rights standpoint, and also for the future of PUST. 

Is North Korea Irrational?

No. For decades academics have been  writing on the rationality of the Kim family (and autocratic survival more generally), but journalists find it easier to sell a story when you can pitch North Korea as a land of crazies. David Kang's earlier academic piece in International Security, his interview on NPR yesterday, and an article from Anna Fifield in the Washington Post all reiterate this point.

If the goal is regime survival, than North Korean actions are indeed rational and successful. Nuclear weapons, strict control of information, and curtailment of freedoms, corruption, deification of regime...all these things are intended to keep the Kim family in power.  North Korea does not play by international rules, it regularly violates norms, and many of its actions are inviolable if not despicable (this is probably true to some degree of all governments). North Korea is certainly and may appear to play by its own rules and logic. But that doesn't make it irrational.

North Korea and Revolutions

Here's a piece by Andrei Lankov evaluating the possibility of revolution in North Korea based on five indicators in James DeFronzo's book “Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements” whether a society is ripe for a revolt. It's overly simplistic, and you can't just check boxes - the causal conditions and antecedents (both structural and agent-driven) are probably more complicated. But it's still worth going through this thought experiment.

Business in North Korea

There's a debate among North Korea observers about the wisdom, viability, and profitability of doing business in the most isolated country in the world. Some see North Korea as an untapped and potentially ripe market for business ventures. Others see such ventures as an exercise in futility, citing the country's unpredictable legal infrastructure for foreign businesses. If some see business as a means of engaging North Korea and encouraging leaders to pursue reforms, others will view such activities as morally reprehensible, providing the regime with hard currency and cash.

A couple years ago I blogged about the rapid rise of cell phone users in North Korea. The numbers continue to rise (close to 3 million now). But from the standpoint of Orascom, the Egyptian telecom company which owns a 75% stake in Koryolink, its business venture under the Kim regime has not fared well. As Andrei Lankov writes in NKNews

In late November the Egyptian building and telecom company Orascom finally admitted what had been known in narrow circles for two years: that its North Korean state partners had taken over the joint Koryolink cellphone network, and that Orascom had been unable to reap any profit from its seemingly successful investment in North Korea.

The Wall Street Journal provided further details.

Koryolink, which now accounts for 85% of Orascom’s revenue and profit, says it hasn’t been able to send any funds out of North Korea in 2015 due to local currency controls and international sanctions targeting Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program...The setback [for Orascom], underscores the risk of doing business in North Korea, where foreign firms have complained that property and profits have been appropriated by the government.

It could be possible that industries such as telecommunications which have implications for regime control, or mining which relates to security, may be more restricted than other industries. On the whole then, foreign business in NK, while no cake walk, has potential given Kim Jong-Un's desire in recent years to boost investments through special economic zones. As if to counter negative press on Orascom, the Pyongyang Times claimed to have "hundreds" of foreign investors. Likewise, a credible source mentioned that 2015 was a pretty good year for North  Korean tourism, ,despite the Ebola ban barring travel to North Korea the first few months. In fact, Uri Tours has organized snowboarding trip to Masikryong ski resort, even bringing professional snowboarders to accompany tourists. In short, there's no conclusive evidence to argue that business ventures are either good or bad for investors.

Content Analysis of Donald Trump Tweets

I am no fan of Donald Trump who is bad news for the Republican Party (and US politics more generally) so I hesitate to give his candidacy any more attention. He is entertaining, however, and I thought I'd post this content analysis of his tweets below as a pedagogical example of how one goes about conducting content/discourse analysis, and in particular, gauging "tone" (something I also do for my own research on Congressional statements on the North Korean regime). 

Strange Bedfellows: Code Pink and John Kerry

If you're a politician with conservative foreign policy views, Code Pink is probably your worst nightmare. They regularly go to battle with members of the U.S. government. But it's good to see (and note) that they are not categorically opposed to U.S. foreign policy, and on rare occasion, go out of the way to applaud the actions of the U.S. government. They did this for Sec. of State John Kerry for his diplomatic engagement with Iran (and Cuba) last week. While activists may be ideological, they can also be pragmatic and support the agenda of the very same officials they target week in and week out - so long as the end goals align.

I thought I would share Code Pink's newsletter:

What. A. Week. Whew! CODEPINK has been in action non-stop. Remember George Bush’s axis of evil? We’ve been pushing an axis of diplomacy: Cuba, Iran, North Korea.Cuba: We participated in the historic flag-raising ceremony at the new Cuban Embassy in Washington DC, threw a salsa party [link to news coverage] outside, and promoted the next step: lifting the trade embargo.
Korea: We hosted a Congressional briefing with Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congressman Charles Rangel, Gloria Steinem and others delegates from Women Cross the DMZ about peace and reunification in Korea.
Iran: We cheered Secretary John Kerry on in a Senate hearing to show appreciation for the nuclear deal he brokered with Iran, debated Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz for at least half an hour about his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, and hosted Iranian dance lessons in front of the White House with our Iranian friends to “humanize” the debate--and have some fun!

Organizing Collaborative Research Projects: Where Do I Begin?

Academic research is a social enterprise. Collaboration - whether through grant-sponsored research projects, conferences, or simply co-authoring – gets us motivated and excited about our research. Collaboration sharpens our intellect and broadens our area of knowledge. But if you’re at a small research university with limited institutional resources, the hurdles to collaborative research are higher. With few research centers on campus, or a lack of research culture revolving around sponsored research grants to do collaborative research, it becomes harder for junior scholars to learn the ropes.

Prior to tenure, I looked into ISA-sponsored workshops and organized a few conference panels in hopes that they might materialize into something further (like an edited volume or special issue). I also secretly hoped that friends from graduate school or more senior colleagues at well-endowed universities might invite me to participate in a joint project. But other than the festschrift thrown for my PhD adviser, no one came knocking. Up until tenure, I had been doing mostly individual research leading to single-authored products.

Post-tenure, then, I made it a goal to get more involved in collaborative research. This meant applying to foundation grants, conducting sponsored research, working with a team of researchers, organizing conferences, and doing an edited volume (despite everyone saying they’re not worth the time and effort). I felt that this was the next step for me in my career. But more importantly, I felt like I was missing out on the social aspect of research and learning.

With that goal in mind, and with help from colleagues and mentors I reached out to, I managed to put together two collaborative projects. The first one on “Re-building Trust” is a relatively small, inter-disciplinary project comprised of scholars mostly from my university affiliated with the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. It began as an informal brown-bag luncheon to exchange ideas on how trust is conceptualized in different disciplines. We developed into a small working group over the course of the semester, and with my department co-conspirator, are now planning a conference locally for next spring.

The second and more ambitious project is on "The Evolution of North Korean Human Rights Discourse and Advocacy" which emerged somewhat organically. I reached out to a researcher (Jiyoung) from Singapore who was visiting Washington DC.  I remember the excitement of our initial conversation in the balcony of Starbucks trying to map out different networks in the North Korean human rights (NKHR) advocacy movement and the diffusion of NKHR discourse. We talked about co-authoring an article. But in the flurry of emails that ensued over the next two weeks, our potential collaboration of two multiplied into a project of four. We looped in a researcher in Australia (Danielle) whom I had never met, but whose book manuscript I had reviewed two years earlier. We also invited an anthropologist friend of mine and Danielle (Sandra) in Japan I knew from a Korean scholars’ networking program who was coming out with a book on North Korean defectors. From Jan. to June, we exchanged probably over a thousand emails and set up multiple conference calls across four different time zones to pass along research ideas, work on our grant application, and plan out our first workshop in Melbourne this past June with generous funding from the Korea Foundation. We still have a long way to go with this project and have yet to produce any deliverables. It’s hard work, but thus far, doing collaborative work has been richly rewarding. My collaborators have made doing research more fun, and I’ve certainly learned more from them on North Korean human rights than I ever would have on my own. Equally important, I’ve learned a LOT about the world of grants, dealing with offices of sponsored research, and organizing academic events.

Based on my recent (and new) experience, I thought I’d offer some thoughts (I hesitate to say I have any advice based on an n of 2) on organizing collaborative research projects for those who are on the junior-ish end of their career and situated outside a major research institution. I’m sure there are plenty of junior scholars who have already organized conferences or launched major collaborative research projects through large grants. But I write to encourage those who have less access to institutional resources or who are at an institution lacking a strong collaborative research environment (for the record, it’s not that my department colleagues don’t do research. They just tend to go solo). One caveat: although I work at a small research university, I’m based in Washington DC which does make it easier to network with other scholars.

1. Be entrepreneurial. This was advice I heard from a policy school dean on how to survive when your university faces serious budget windfalls. Although he meant apply for outside funding, I took this to also mean being entrepreneurial in the intellectual/academic sense. That is, reaching out to scholars who share potential interests with you (see next point), and mentors who dish good advice.

2. Network. You never know who may become a potential collaborator. One connection may lead to another. A random conversation may open several more doors. One of the reasons why our team of four clicked so well was that even for those who had never met in person, we knew of each other through our existing networks. As mentioned, I knew Sandra from another group. Sandra had roomed with Danielle in Seoul through a sponsored program event. I met Jiyoung in DC for a Brookings conference. None of us imagined during our initial encounter that we would do a project together.

3. But be patient. There’s usually an opportune time to reach out to other scholars so by suggesting to network, this doesn’t mean you start firing off emails to anyone and everyone who writes on your topic. Sometimes it pays to wait and be patient. In retrospect, my APSA and ISA conference panels probably never materialized into anything further because the timing wasn’t right.

4. Seek out mentors outside your department and university. When I first started as an assistant professor, I kept wishing a senior colleague would take me under his/her wings and show me the ropes, or at the very least, have someone whose career trajectory I could emulate. Eventually, I stopped wishing and sought advice on my own elsewhere. After attending a talk by a senior faculty member in the psychology department which overlapped with my research, I asked if he’d be interested in getting together for lunch. That lunch turned into the first of many lunches and his insights and experience on collaboration, grant applying, cutting through university red tape etc….have been invaluable. Although we meet as friends (despite he being emeritus now), whether he sees it this way or not, I look up to him as a trusted mentor.

5. Who makes a good collaborator? A blog post on co-authoring appeared on the Duck of Minerva so those insights apply here. Researchers have different work habits, personalities, professional goals, etc . .  so obviously collaboration does not work well with everyone. A lot of times, a junior scholar will partner with more senior colleagues to “learn the ropes” (i.e. junior colleague does most of the organizing and grunt work; senior colleague attracts people and money). That was the model I had envisioned for myself at the very beginning of my career, and I’ve seen it work. But one thing which I believe helped our group mesh well (other than the fact that we’re all highly interested and motivated in our research topic) despite our different work habits and personalities is that we’re all in similar stages of our career. All of us are relatively junior, but at least have one monograph under our belt and are working towards a second. Thus we work as equals which creates a more open and friendly dynamic.

6. Become allies with the Office of Sponsored Research. I’ve complained about our OSR in the past b/c they set up all sorts of bureaucratic roadblocks simply because they can (but more likely for very good legal reasons). But that’s just the nature of the game. Ultimately, you will have to get their support to successfully complete a grant sponsored research project. OSR wants you to win grants and do great research b/c it reflects well on them and your university. They are there to help you – even if there’s a lot of red tape to cut through.

7. Budgeting.  With foundation grants, the incentive structure is often stacked for over-budgeting. I tend to be a budget conscious person so I actually struggled with this, but as one of my collaborators with more experience reminded me - if you need the money and can justify it, just go for it. However, from our Re-building Trust project, I’ve also learned that it actually doesn’t take much money to get people together and talk about an interesting topic. The three brown bag lunches I hosted on trust was on a budget of under $150 (basically lunch for 10-12 people three times). I ended up paying the last lunch out of my own pocket because there was no funding, but it was worth the cost of a few boxes of pizza to keep the conversation going. Our conference is local with mostly our own faculty, so we anticipate pulling this together by receiving small pockets of money from different parts of the university (for the record, everyone we’ve asked about contributing to our budget have supported our venture since it fosters collaboration with faculty across different units).

8. Be patient, again. Opportunities will eventually come if you really want to pursue collaborative research and keep your eyes open. No need to force it.  A safer career path is setting an early foundation for tenure (i.e. converting dissertation into book or articles; figuring out your own research goals and interests; building a steady stream of publications) before jumping into a larger collaborative project. Of course, collaboration may help generate new ideas and spur greater research productivity and help with tenure recommendation letters. Keep in mind though that producing deliverables out of collaborative research projects may end up taking much more time than anticipated. More people = less control over the intangibles. The point is not to discourage junior faculty from pursuing collaborative research projects early on, but to be patient and not force yourself to initiate collaborative projects for the sake of collaboration.

I still have much more to learn about the grant world, and I’ll only be getting my feet wet with conference planning for the first time next year. Any other comments or suggestions from past collaborative experiences are welcome. 

North Korea New Round-up: Comission of Inquiry on Human Rights; NK Photos; Cell Phones

The UNHRC's Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea released its report a couple weeks ago. An excerpt from the report is here.  One of the more interesting highlights is committee's suggestion that NK leaders might face charges at the International Criminal Court.

More details about North Korean cell phones appeared on 38 North by Yonho Kim, a corresonpdant for Voice of America. Earlier, on 38 North, Ruediger Frank presented a somewhat comical analysis of tablets in North Korea.

Some truths about photos from North Korea.

North Korea Collapse Scenarios

Peter Hayes of the Nautilus Institute published a critical assessment of a new RAND study, Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse. In skimming Hayes critique, two points come to the forefront. First, the study is unclear about the probability of whether collapse is imminent: when vs. if North Korea will collapse. Bruce Bennett, the author of the study, is more nuanced in his report even if RAND's publication division plays up the "imminent" card. For instance, the first key finding listed in RAND's executive summary is that "There Is a Reasonable Probability That North Korean Totalitarianism Will End in the Foreseeable Future." As such, the report may not provide the best basis for policy. As Hayes writes, "The problem with Bennett’s report is that it quickly moved from the purely 'conceptual space' into the media space,  and is fast headed for the policy-political space." Given the probability of competing non-collapse scenarios, Hayes cautions hastily drawing immediate policy conclusions out of the study.

Second, the collapse argument has been around for two decades now.  Take just one scenario for instance: David Collins' collapse scenario in 1995 in the wake of the famine:

Phase One:resource depletion
Phase Two: the failure to maintain infrastructure around the country because of resource depletion
Phase Three: the rise of independent fiefs informally controlled by local party apparatchiks or warlords, along with widespread corruption to circumvent a failing central government
Phase Four: the attempted suppression of these fiefs by the KFR once it feels that they have become powerful enough
Phase Five: active resistance against the central government
Phase Six: the fracture of the regime
Phase Seven: the formation of new national leadership.

As we all know, collapse has yet to happen, and has forced some analysts such as Aidan Foster-Carter and David Maxwell to backtrack on their earlier predictions with Maxwell writing a piece about why North Koreans don't rebel.

For someone like me who wants to know whether pockets of civil society exist in North Korea, the study is a must read because any collapse scenario will implicate or have implications for ordinary North Koreans. North Koreans may mobilize to hasten or complicate a devolving North Korean state in a hard collapse scenario. And in a soft-landing scenario, civil society (or its development) will be instrumental in bringing about a less chaotic transition.

Studying Civil Society in North Korea

CFR recently published my report on South Korean civil society and the U.S.-ROK alliance.

Civil Society North Korean-style :)

But my attention this week has turned to civil society in North Korea. Civil society in North Korea?!? Well no, its probably non-existent. But  a map of DPRK which locates where market activity is taking place and where humanitarian organizations operate exists. I wonder if the map might help researchers a) locate where one could go to look for potential early signs of things like trust, social capital, or civil society at the local level and b) compare this to other comparable regions in DPRK without the presence of market activity, aid agencies, etc..... it would be a natural or field experiment of sorts to see whether market activity or foreign presence has helped create social networks outside of government control. One could test basic concepts such as the relationship between market activity and social capital (i.e. whether market exchanges facilitate social capital and trust). My wife tells me economists think the relationship is reverse: social capital helps facilitate market exchanges. The larger point, however, is whether market activity or long term foreign presence helps create pockets of civil society in North Korea. Such a study might also lead us to examine the degree of  internal support for the regime as well as issues related to governance in a post-unification, post-transition scenario. 

Obviously the obstacles to such a study are enormous without real access into North Korea. It's not like I could handout survey questions. But there might be other ways of studying social capital. The World Bank has some practical suggestions. And there seem to be plenty of books and articles on measuring and finding social capital. For instance, one study linked cell phone ownership and social capital in Africa...something which might be plausible to examine in North Korea's future with two million cell phone subscribers (mostly in Pyongyang) through Koryolink - an Egyptian venture into the DPRK telecom industry. Rumors have it that there might be a second company entering the market. According to a Nautilus Report, DPRK's IT sector is growing with the mobile industry having "crossed the Rubicon."

One thought was the idea of using market activity as a proxy for civil society. It may be possible that in the unofficial markets, trust between the sellers and customers is the core of what enables market to run. It's hard to make transactions that could potentially throw you in jail if you don't trust your counterpart who might report you to authorities for engaging in illicit trade. On the other hand, I've heard some horror stories about market activity promoting rent-seeking behavior, corruption, and greed in DPRK and in pockets of China (the exact opposite of social capital!).

Finally, it's possible that social capital may take on an entirely (North Korean) bent which may not be easily observed. Would the concept of social capital in North Korea exist in the same way it does in other parts of the world? My discussions with defectors and NGO workers is that North Koreans have a hard time trusting anyone after having lived under a watchful regime where even family members become informants. Marc Howard's Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe raises some of these challenges for Eastern Europe (the article length version in Journal of Democracy is here). But living under decades of juche (self-reliant) ideology may present a whole different set of challenges for the growth of civil society in North Korea.

The Laotian Nine: Escaping or Trafficked out of North Korea?

A North Korean human rights issue which has captured much attention recently is the return of the Laotian Nine: last month, nine North Korean defectors (all reportedly orphans) caught in Laos were detained by the Laotian government before being repatriated back to North Korea. The nine, with the aid of an activist/pastor, had navigated the underground railroad out of North Korea through China and into Laos over the past two years in hopes of seeking asylum in South Korea. Laotian actions potentially violated international law which prevents countries from repatriating refugees if their lives are endangered. Because of the media spotlight, there's some hope that the nine orphans, mostly children, will avoid being sent to the gulags, but there fate now is unknown.The case has received attention not only because of the number of children involved, but because Laos had been seen as a relative safe haven for defectors.

It's clear that Pyongyang has been cracking down on the number of defectors the past few years. There's speculation that the North Koreans (and perhaps the Chinese) may have pressured the Laotian government this time to repatriate the nine young defectors. The Laotian (and North Korean) government claimed that the nine were "trafficked"  out of North Korea by a Christian activist/pastor.

Here lies the moral and legal dilemma faced by third party countries like Laos or China and the importance of labels. In China, those who escape North Korea are labeled as "economic migrants" rather than refugees. As economic migrants, they are not protected under international law and therefore sent back to North Korea. In the Laotian nine case, Vientiane claimed the nine were "trafficked", an action which paradoxically makes the children victims of human rights abuse. Morally, we know it's wrong to send defectors back to North Korea if the chance of torture, hard labor, or death for defectors are high (which they are according to human rights reports). But legally, what do you do if providing safe haven or aiding defectors violates the sovereignty of another country (in this case North Korea). To put this in perspective, if a U.S. citizen breaks the law and flees another country, the US would certainly not want other countries giving safe haven to defectors and insist they be repatriated back to the U.S. (i.e. draft dodgers during the Vietnam era, or more recently, Edward Snowden). And yes, I'm aware the U.S. is no North Korea.

Of course, we tend to treat North Korea as a country which has given up its right to be judged as a sovereign state since North Korea repeatedly violates international law (or norms, natural law etc...) and apply domestic laws arbitrarily and unevenly (North Korea laws are interpreted and applied at the discretion of the regime. But here's a somewhat alternative view). Most human rights advocates, including myself, are appalled at the decision to repatriate the nine defectors, mostly children. Yet from the perspective of Vientiane, Beijing, or Pyeongyang which also consider national interests, diplomatic relations, and economic costs and not just moral reputation and international codes of ethics, the decision is surely a complicated one. Activists and states which adhere closely to the UN conventions must continue to persuade - through instrumental means or moral suasion - why a blanket policy of repatriation is wrong (i.e. there must be a way to distinguish between refugees, economic migrants, and trafficked persons). They must also press countries which have some diplomatic purchase over North Korea (i.e. China) to push Pyeongyang to address issues which are at the root cause of defection: food shortages, abject poverty, and human rights abuses.

Social Justice and the Common Good

Several months ago I posted a blog about the Justice Conference in light of a recent talk I had given on social justice. Social justice is an issue of personal faith for me rather than a topic for research, but I'm beginning to find ways to bring the two together.

 Although its less not at all obvious at my overtly Catholic institution, I do get the sense that academics have a harder time taking evangelical Christians as a group seriously. It doesn't help that the Evangelicals get a bad rap from secular liberals. 

What's sometimes lost or forgotten in the vitrol aimed at Evangelicals and Catholics is that many of these religious folks actually do care about others including the poor. I cut and taped this article by Donald Wuerl, currently the Archbishop of Washington DC, on my office door in January. His piece was in response to a petition identifying the Catholic Church as a hate group due to its position on homosexuality. In the article, he reminds us that the Archidiocese of Washington  functions as the largest non-governmental provider of social services in the DC area. I see several trucks giving out free meals to homeless outside the World Bank every evening - and I'm sure they are part of some faith-based ministry. Archbishop Wuerl writes: 

The church does not do these things for money or profit or because they’re nice to do. When the church treats the sick and injured, or feeds the hungry, or teaches, or provides assistance to those in need, it does so as an answer to the call made by Jesus Christ. We are obligated to do these and other works of mercy and to give voice to moral truth because He asks us to.

I remembered the piece by Fr. Wuerl after reading an op-ed from Michael Gerson who also linked Christian teaching with social justice. In searching for the common good, we pursue social justice (something I hear often at my Catholic-affiliated university, although clearly not practiced by all). The op-ed is premised with the idea/hope that American politics would look towards the common good.  Searching for the common good may be one way of bridging the divide and mitigating the dangers of extreme polarization in domestic politics and foreign policy.

So why am I writing about all this on my research blog?  A recurring theme in my research is how/why people come to draw different assumptions and conclusions about the world. In other words, how are beliefs, ideas, and worldviews shaped and how does politics and contention stem from these different beliefs and assumptions?  Take for instance these peace activist recently arrested for breaking into a nuclear facility. Why are they opposed to nukes? What motivated them to break the law? How does their understanding of security differ from that of the government's (and also the looney prosecutors who claim that these activists comprised American national security)?

One thing my social science training has taught me is that categories like activists or Evangelicals are rarely homogeneous, as much as we would like them to be. Christian tradition can produce contrasting conclusions as I found in my short research on North Korean human rights. Here's a comment from Gerson which particularly rang true in my findings on Evangelicals and human rights. Can you guess which group adhere to naming-and-shaming strategies and which ones focus on humanitarian assistance/engagement? 

"Nearly every Christian tradition of social ethics encompasses two sorts of justice. The first is procedural justice: giving people what they deserve under contracts and the law. The second is distributive justice: meeting some needs just because human beings are human beings. This is not the same thing as egalitarianism; confiscation is not compassion. But distributive justice requires a decent provision for the vulnerable and destitute. And this is not just a matter of personal charity. Social justice is more than crumbs from the table; it depends on the existence of social and economic conditions that allow people to live, work and thrive."

North Korean Human Rights II: UN Human Rights Inquiry

Calling for an "international inquiry" into North Korean human rights abuses, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has stepped up pressure on the international community to address deplorable conditions and practices in North Korea. For years, the UN Human Rights Council has assigned a special rapporteur to North Korea, but Navi Pillay, the High Commissioner seems to be ramping up efforts herself. Here's a post from HRNK on how the UN has dealt with NK human rights the past few years and why the inquiry is significant.

The U.S. has already expressed support for the inquiry. However, there was much more suspense to whether South Korea would agree to the inquiry given that the new president had pledged to improve North-South relations. Addressing human rights  at the start of her tenure would surely not be well-received by Pyeongyang, jeopardizing the opportunity to improve relations. However, not supporting the investigation would weaken the legitimacy and credibility of the UN investigation.

However, South Korea decided to support the inquiry yesterday. This is a good decision. Why turn a blind eye to North Korean human rights abuses when it clearly exists? There's no guarantee that the North will follow-up on negotiations even if Seoul defers its support.  Also, there's no reason to write off the possibility of engaging the North, even as Seoul acknowledges human rights abuses. At least Seoul would be on higher moral ground if the Park government makes an initial gesture to provide aid and the North rejected it because of South Korea's support for the UN inquiry.

Update #1: Roberta Cohen weighs in on events leading to the adoption resolution to hold a  UN commission of inquiry into abuses in North Korea.

Update #2: Steph Haggard also discusses the UN Commission of Inquiry and tags documentation. He notes  four advantages of moving ahead with the inquiry.

First, we found it interesting that the North Koreans felt compelled to respond, even if they claimed that the resolution was not worthy of response. Somewhere, someone in North Korea is reading a statement by the Foreign Ministry saying that North Korea does not have a human rights problem. As cynicism rises, such statements are rightly interpreted as implying the opposite. .

Second, the commission will galvanize organizations working on the issue, and give their activities a boost, including with respect to refugees.

Third, the action has diplomatic effect. Its hard for the DPRK to say that a resolution passed with Venezuelan support is a cabal of the imperialists; North Korea is increasingly identified with other states and conflicts with commissions of inquiry, such as Syria or Darfur.

Finally, if we are going to have international crimes as we now do under the Rome Statute it is important that allegations of them be investigated and treated with the seriousness they deserve. Building international law is a function of practice, and commissions of inquiry can contribute to that practice.

In other news: Dennis Rodman meets Kim Jong-Un on basketball diplomacy. Crazy PR stunt or an updated version of ping-pong diplomacy? NPR has a good story on this.

North Korean Human Rights: Naming and Shaming

A while back, there was an exchange between John Feffer and Roberta Cohen on North Korean human rights. John argued that naming-and-shaming are ineffective, if not counter-productive and instead argued for a human security approach to human rights (i.e. provide aid and development assistance). I later weighed in on the politics between these two camps.

I thought about John's point again on whether naming-and-shaming actually works on North Korea. Roberta mentioned that they did sign the UN Treaty on Human Rights as a sign of progress; this might be stage two of Risse, Ropp, and Sikkink's five-stage spiral model on human rights change. I was reminded though, thanks to a post on the Duck, that there actually is academic literature on the effectiveness of naming-and-shaming strategies. Amanda Murdie and Dylan Davis ran a quantitative analysis on this using some creative (in a good way) methods to measure shaming and human rights change. Cullen Hendrix and Wendy Wong also have a forthcoming article in BJPS.

The verdict: Yes, naming-and-shaming do have a qualified/conditional impact. Translation: naming-shaming has to be done under certain conditions (i.e. they're effective on autocratic but not democratic regimes) and in conjunction with some other factors (i.e. when domestic NGOs are present are INGOs are also weighing in). For North Korea then, human rights activism may have at least a weak effect on the regime: there are no domestic NGOs or civil society to support transnational activists, but there is pressure from the UN and North Korea is autocratic.

North Korean Revolution, Maybe?

Andrei Lankov wrote an interesting op-ed in last week's Washington Post countering some of the optimism following reports about signs of reform taking place in North Korea under Kim Jong-Un (KJU). Signs of reform range from the serious (allowing North Koreans to retain a certain percentage of their crops) to the silly (riding roller-coasters and watching Disney characters).

It’s unclear whether these signs of reform are the beginning of a new era or whether they are temporary measures. In the past, North Korea has frequently demonstrated signs of reform only to leave its people and the rest of the world wanting. Some such as Victor Cha argue we’ve seen this behavior before and downplay prospects for reform.

Andrei’s point is not whether the reforms this time are real or not. The question is what will happen to North Korea if its tries to reform. Reforms obviously carry risks for the regime. Economic liberalization will inevitably require greater opening to the outside world creating pressure for even more reforms. What Lankov notes is the unique position of North Korea. Unlike other past authoritarian or communist regimes which faced similar risks, the North Korean regime is more susceptible to implosion. Once ordinary North Koreans begin to see how much better off Koreans south of the 38^th parallel live, the regime’s lies about the superiority of juche and the DPRK will become starkly clear. North Koreans will demand for more change, question the authority and legitimacy of the North Korean state, and possibly call for unification with the South.

I’m reminded by E.H. Carr about the power over public opinion and the role of propaganda in building state power. By walling off all outside information, the state can create it's own fantasy world. But there's the danger that the truth will out the state propaganda machine.