La Trobe Asia – Asia Rising Human Rights Abuses in North Korea

Matt Smith Welcome to Asia Rising, the podcast from La Trobe Asia where we discuss the news, views and general happenings of Asian states and societies. I'm your host Matt Smith.

The Democratic Republic of North Korea is a country where human rights are severely limited, press is censored, police of all kind are persecuted and the world is taking notice. In 2014 the UN Commission of Enquiry into Human Rights in North Korea published a report detailing human rights abuses committed by the countries leadership against its own people. They compared the scale of the abuse to the atrocities committed by the Nazi's.

Here to discuss the response to the UN enquiry is Dr Danielle Chubb a lecturer in International Relations at Deacon University, thanks for joining me Danielle.

Dr Danielle Chubb Thanks for having me Matt.

Matt Smith So can you give me a bit of a perspective on the human rights issues in North Korea and is the comparison to the Nazi regime an accurate or fair one?

Danielle Chubb To answer the second part of the question first, I think what you're referring to there is in 2014 when the report was released Michael Kirby who was the Chair of the Commission Enquiry, he made this comparison in the launch of the report. And from my perspective, without putting words in his mouth; the reason this is done - this comparison is made, is because this enquiry is tasked with bringing the attention of the world community to the human rights situation in North Korea. This is a powerful way of reminding the international community, that after the holocaust, that after the atrocities that occurred under Nazi Germany and its allies during WW2, the world said 'never again will we allow this to happen under our noses, never again will we knowingly allow people to perish in concentration camps and have their rights grossly violated' so I think that's the reason this comparison is made. I think other direct comparisons can be made but they're not necessarily very helpful, but that I think is a very powerful analogy.

As for my perspective on human rights in North Korea, the Commission of Enquiry I think was very comprehensive and so it's probably worth at the top of this just going over what we are talking about.

First the Enquiry found that there were systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations taking place inside North Korea and some of these violations they found did constitute crimes against humanity, and I won't go into this in great detail, it's all out there for people to look up if they're interested. The methodology of the Commission was very rigorous and very interesting I think, so they took this very seriously and while North Korea refused, after many efforts to engage with North Korea to take part in the enquiry. They decided this wasn't going to stop them and after decades of human rights activism, or so-called defector activism, that there was enough data out there, enough proof out there, enough evidence out there to make this a legally compelling case. And hours and hours and hours of private and public testimony from former North Koreans as well as activists and analysists was recorded and taken into consideration in the compilation of this report.

The violations ranged from freedom of thought, expression, religion – where a huge propaganda system in North Korea requires absolute obedience to a supreme leader. Where the social activities of the North Koreans are dictated by the Worker's Party of Korea. There's no independent media, it's all State controlled.

That there's a system of widespread discrimination, that basically North Koreans are categorised according to Songbun, this social classification from birth whereby this dictates where they are able to live, what kind of education they can have, the kinds of jobs and accommodations and opportunities that they're able to have during the alliance. That this also affected their livelihood especially during the famine where a shortage of food meant that those that were the least favoured by the government under this system were restricted from accessing food.

There's no freedom of movement, people can't go where they want, they can't leave the country and the final two findings; and I think these are the most widely known were that: there is a system of concentration camps where arbitrary detention, executions and disappearances occur. There's Kwalliso which the North Korean regime denies their existence, even though we have clear satellite images that tell us they exist. And also the Commission Enquiry looked into the question of abductions, that a wide range of peoples from the Korean war but also just individuals from Japan and South Korea particularly, were abducted at various stages by the North Korean Government. So that's a very quick snapshot, but yes this is a really comprehensive report and it's a dire situation in North Korea.

Matt Smith So the UN Commission Report delivered in 2014 has some fairly damming evidence, but there seems to be very little progress in the meantime, at lease diplomatically, so what's your assessment of that process?

Danielle Chubb The Commission Enquiry Recommendation; I've already talked a little bit about the findings, the recommendations were also quite widespread and comprehensive. The flagship and most noticed and also I think the most promoted by the Commission Chairs was this idea of accountability, that North Korean leaders need to understand that their actions are being noticed by the international community and that they'll be held accountable and most particularly the report recommends referral by the UN Security Council to the International Criminal Court, or at the setup of an arbitrary process.

Neither of these are likely to happen, but these are still what the international community is working towards. So while there hasn't been a lot of progress diplomatically on that front, there have been other developments in the UN process area, not to overstate it, but there have been slowly things happening. Most notably the setting up of a so-called field office which was mandated or required by the report, that its meant to continue its focus on accountability and data collection, that's been set up in Seoul, it's an extension of the Office of the High Commission of Human Rights from the United Nations and its mandate is to strengthen monitoring, documentation, to engage with civil society groups and other stakeholders and to maintain visibility of the human rights situation.

So this is an effort to make sure that we don't lose momentum I guess on these fronts. And I think that while we haven't seen referrals to the International Criminal Court for a whole range of issues that are well beyond the remit of this particular commission, we have seen a lot of developments domestically in the United States and South Korea that’s all been enabled by this high level of attention that's been given to the human rights situation in North Korea. Matt Smith But it does rely a lot on; if there's going to be any significant progress, co-operation from North Korea, which doesn't really seem like it's going to be forthcoming at all.

Danielle Chubb It also I think more importantly, requires co-operation from China and Russia.

Matt Smith Yes sure.

Danielle Chubb From the Security Council perspective. So North Korea's not a signatory, they have to be referred through the Security Council and China and Russia aren't likely to support any referral, in fact they're extremely unlikely and we know their position on human rights in the United Nations.

Matt Smith So, the international effort to stop North Koreas nuclear tests, they've been unsuccessful and so what are your thoughts on this and do you think it's taking an international priority over the human rights violations?

Danielle Chubb Of course. The international community's focus on North Korea has been, and will continue to be on the nuclear and ballistic missile program.

Matt Smith Is it fairly safe because I feel like the human rights violations are being used as a tool to bring sanctions against North Korea that are more so aimed at trying to keep their nuclear capabilities in check?

Danielle Chubb Yes, I think what we've seen happen, really over the past year or two or I think since the release of this report, is an increasing tendency; and this is unprecedented when it comes to North Korea, an increasing tendency to link human rights and nuclear weapons concerns. And I think this comes to the question of sanctions.

We have two perspectives. First of all we have the perspective that sanctions on North Korea for human rights violations or for nuclear weapons won't work and that time has shown that we've had sanctions on North Korea since the 1990's, they haven't worked and they won't work. That's one school of thought.

The other end of the spectrum, we have people, and a lot of these work within the human rights community in the United States say 'well the sanctions that have been recently bi-laterally imposed on North Korea by the United States by the North Korean Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016 under the Obama Administration, these are unprecedented in their level of restriction on the level that they impose on North Korean individuals financial sanctions and that they haven't had a chance to work'.

And in fact while the camp who doesn't believe sanctions will work say that, 'they've been tried for a long time and they won't work, we need to get back to the negotiating table' – people on the other side of the spectrum say 'we've been trying to talk to North Korea for decades and that hasn't worked so we need to try this'.

So these two schools of thought, they have trouble talking to each other. In the middle I think, you have people who are really trying to make progress, they are concerned that linking human rights with nuclear weapons is problematic because it can stymie progress on the nuclear weapons front. Which many see, especially those within the State Department see it as a necessary priority, that this is a potential threat, particularly to South Korea but also to the United States.

But you also have others who say, 'well nothing we've been doing on the nuclear weapons front has worked, maybe it's time to try this, after all we can't close our eyes anymore to the human rights violations in North Korea'. And maybe and just maybe, and you do hear people saying this, 'maybe North Korean officials, lower level or mid-level are going to see that one day they might be held accountable for their actions and they might afraid that the status quo on the Korean Peninsula won't hold and so they may modify their actions in this way. I think this is a long shot.

Matt Smith Yes it does sound very pie in the sky kind of thinking.

Danielle Chubb But this is where we're at at the moment, so I find it very interesting that we're linking, all of a sudden human rights and nuclear weapons development. So actually to go back a step I think, when we look at sanctions I think sanctions have two purposes.

Sanctions that we've had for a long time imposed by the United Nations on North Korea to stop nuclear weapons has been all aimed at bringing North Korea back to the negotiating table, back to the six party talks, back to an agreement where they stop development, stop their nuclear and ballistic missiles program and work towards disarmament.

Whereas, in my perspective the human rights sanctions; and without making a statement about whether or not they're going to be effective, they very much come from the perspective whereby the only way we're going to change the human rights situation in North Korea is to put so much pressure on the regime that it's no longer sustainable. And the corollary of this is that these are people who are pushing for regime change and for a long time they weren't saying this specifically but you are seeing this kind of regime rhetoric come back in. And I don't think that you can see this any other way, I mean sanctions on the North Korean regime for human rights violations are not aimed at bringing North Korea back to a negotiating table.

Pressuring the country to change the human rights in this way has no precedent for being successful and so linking these two I think is potentially a dangerous precedent. But it's also the way that some very thoughtful people have been looking at this issue so it will be interesting to see where we go forward with this.

Matt Smith So while the international community plans its steps forward, the activist community is a very active element of all this and you've been studying this directly. So can you tell me about that, how extensive is it?

Danielle Chubb I think all my perspectives on this that I've already been covering come from my study of the activist community. When people think about North Korean human rights activism; and I think this applies to many people who have been working in North Korean human rights space as well as interested outsiders, all they see is this very vocal group of advocates, mostly based in Washington DC, but also in Seoul and they're made up of usually quite conservative players who are backed by the Christian Right because there is a huge issue in North Korea when it comes to freedom of religion.

This is of grave concern to many evangelical communities in the United States and this is important because there is a core constituency for a lot of the lobby groups in Washington DC and gives them a lot of legitimacy. And these groups work often closely with so-called defector communities who are trying to bring about change in this way; which also gives them a lot of legitimacy because they can claim to have North Korean voices and they're very loud, they lobby Congress and they help bring about these sanctions acts and all these kinds of things.

But you also have a whole other type of activist who are mostly based in Europe, who work very closely with the UN processes, who were in fact the ones who brought about the UN Commission of Enquiry. It's interesting to note that those people based in DC, while they definitely draw a lot of currency from the UN Commission of Enquiry Report to give their campaign legitimacy and their goals legitimacy, they were opposed to it because they ultimately don't believe the diplomatic process is ultimately not going to change anything in North Korea.

But you do have very committed activists who come from an Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch type of tradition which is very much based on a legalistic discourse of North Korean human rights which are concerned with using the mechanisms we have within the United Nations and who are working with Nava Pillay who was the High Commissioner of Human Rights who called for the report. Who made sure that she met camp survivors, who made sure that she was exposed to the huge amount of human rights activism that was taking place, who were looking for different ways of approaching the North Korean human rights situation and these activists have very different perspectives on how to bring about change.

So you have two different camps and I think both of them have been very effective, both of them have brought about great change, and the way policy makers think and talk about North Korea, I would argue, is very much thanks to decades of human rights activism. When I started studying this in the early 2000's it was very much a niche issue and no-one was paying attention to it and that's completely changed.

So I think that it’s a very extensive community to answer your question directly, it's not a cohesive one, in some ways divided but also rather than saying it's a divided community, you could say it's a very diverse community.

Matt Smith So we've just had an election in the United States and all indications are that President Trump will handle the situation in North Korea, maybe differently, maybe creatively. While it's hard to know exactly how this is going to play out, do you have any predictions about what may happen?

Danielle Chubb Honestly I think that the only responsible thing to say to that question is, I have no idea. Because if you look at what Donald Trump has said, the very little he's said about North Korea and he has said very little about North Korea. He's suggested that off the cuff one time that he might sit down and have a hamburger with Kim Jong-un if Kim Jong-un came to Washington DC. But he also suggested that, 'you know maybe we should assassinate the guy', so I don't know.

Matt Smith Ah, 'China should assassinate the guy'. Danielle Chubb Ok yes, 'this is China's responsibility that he should be assassinated'. I mean President Obama in his Presidential campaign you have to remember, spoke very strongly about negotiating and engaging with North Korea in a very different tone and for very different reasons to Trump, and for a whole range of reasons which we don't have time to get into, this didn't materialise.

And I don't think anyone would have predicted it back in 2008 – 2009 that an Obama administration would place sanctions on North Korea due to its human rights violations. I mean this is a complete turnaround in policy, so what President Trump will do is hard to predict. He doesn't have though a great track record for criticising authoritarian leaders for their human rights abuses, let's just say that.

Matt Smith Alright, that's all the time we've got for the podcast today, thanks for your time Danielle.

Danielle Chubb Thanks Matt.

Matt Smith You've been listening to Asia Rising, the podcast of La Trobe Asia. If you'd like to follow Danielle Chubb on Twitter she's @danielle_chb if you want to follow myself on Twitter I'm @nightlightguy. If you like this podcast you can subscribe to it on iTunes and Sound Cloud. Please leave a review there because reviews make us feel appreciated and wanted.

I'm Matt Smith and thanks for listening.