United Nations Security Council Crisis Committee Background Guide WRITTEN BY: Christopher Gittings and Aziza Mbugua The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the organ of the United Nations charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. It is composed of 15 members. The United States of America, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, People’s Republic of China, and the French Republic are permanent members of the committee, and the remaining ten members consists of ten elected members who serve two year terms and are selected on a regional basis. These ten members are Bolivia, The Netherlands, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Sweden, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, Peru and Poland as of 2018. The UNSC is widely understood to be the most powerful body of the UN, and it serves to address global issues which have the potential to spark international conflicts. It directs over 110,000 peacekeeping forces including police, troops, and military experts supplied by 123 different UN member nations, with the goal of creating conditions for lasting world peace. Peacekeeping forces are guided by three principles: consent of countries/parties hosting peacekeepers, impartiality amid conflict, and avoidance of the use of force unless used in self-defense or in defense of a UNSC resolution mandate. Peacekeepers may only be mobilized through a UNSC mandate given through a resolution passed by the body. The UNSC is also responsible for recommending the addition of new members to the UN, investigating disputes which threaten international friction (including cross-border conflict and civil waters), determining what actions UN nations should take in response to a threat to the peace or act of aggression, and passing economic sanctions which are binding on UN member states. I. Nuclear Provocation in the Korean Peninsula Statement of the Issue Repeated attempts to tighten economic sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) have failed to curb the development of the government’s nuclear weapons development program. North Korea has progressed towards becoming the world’s 9th nuclear power at a faster pace than anyone in the international community has predicted. This Security Council must address the continued belligerence of North Korea under Kim Jong Un, threats to international security posed by its nuclear program, and the continued failure of existing efforts to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula. These issues include recent missile and nuclear tests conducted by the North Korean government, the installment of the advanced anti-ballistic missile defense system THAAD in the Republic of Korea, and a public threat of “fire, fury, and power, the likes of which the world has never seen before” made by the President of the United States. Background Though it had thrived under self-rule for centuries, Korea stood in the shadow of Imperial competition between Russia and Japan in the late 1800’s. The 1904-1905 Russo- Japanese War saw Korea become a nominal protectorate of the Empire of Japan under the 1905 Protectorate Treaty, with Emperor Gojong forced to abdicate after Japan learned that he sent secret envoys to the Second Hague Conventions to protest against the protectorate treaty. Emperor Gojong was soon replaced by his son Emperor Sunjong. In 1909, Japan banned all political organizations and proceeded with plans for annexation after Korean Independence activist An Jung-geun assassinated Korea’s highest ranking Japanese representative. Japan effectively annexed Korea by the 1910 Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, ending domestic governance and instilling strict Japanese leadership for 35 years. The end of World War II saw the fall of the Empire of Japan in 1945, and Korea found itself jointly occupied by rival world powers. The United States and the Soviet Union occupied the two halves of the country, with the boundary between their zones of control along the 38th parallel. Reunification was not a consideration. The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka Soviet Union) formed North Korea (The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) in the territory it occupied, crafting it as a socialist state under the communist model with large-scale nationalization of industry, and placing it under the authoritarian rule of Kim Il-sung. Meanwhile, the United States established South Korea (The Republic of Korea) and formed its government as a parliamentary democracy, granting it independence in 1948. North Korea enjoyed a high rate of economic growth in the years immediately after World War II, mobilizing its labour force and natural resources in an effort to achieve rapid economic development with the help of large amounts of aid from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. South Korea was meanwhile one of the world’s poorest countries, with an underdeveloped agrarian economy that depended heavily on U.S. aid. North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung received Stalin’s approval to invade South Korea in 1950 under the condition that Mao’s China would agree to send reinforcements if needed.1 The Stalin-blessed invasion began immediately. Within the first months, North Korean troops took 90 percent of the Peninsula, forcing the poorly-trained U.S. and U.N.-backed soldiers to a small southeastern bastion known as the Pusan Perimeter. 1Cumings, Bruce. The Korean war: a history. New York, NY: Modern Library, 2011. In response, the UN Security Council sprung into action and adopted Resolution 82 on June 25th 1950. The US-introduced legislation stated that North Korea's invasion was a breach of peace in violation of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Following passage, the US delegation contacted the Soviet delegation and requested that the USSR use its influence over North Korea to compel it to comply with the resolution and cease aggression, but the Soviet Union denied its request. Noting that the resolution failed to de-escalate the conflict, the UNSC convened again on June 27 to pass United Nations Security Council Resolution 83, which recommended military intervention by other UN member nations to restore peace on the Korean Peninsula. Direct intervention by the U.S. rapidly changed the tide of the war, pushing Kim Il Sung's army back upwards and far past the previously established border at the 38th parallel. Viewing the approach of western troops closer to its border with extreme discomfort, China joined the fray in October and pushed the U.S. and South Korean forces back down to the 38th parallel. After two more years of fighting and very little exchange of territory, the warring parties established an armistice in July 1953 near the 38th parallel (almost the exact same border as before the war) and established the demilitarized zone (DMZ).2 The demilitarized zone remains the most heavily guarded border in the world.3 Despite the armistice, no official peace agreement was signed between North Korea and South Korea, and the two nations remain in a technical state of war. South Korea continued to struggle as one of the poorest economies in the world following the armistice. Its GDP per capita in 1960 was only $79. Though it had been founded as a US-backed Parliamentary democracy, the state repeatedly drifted between democratic governance and authoritarian capitalist rule over the following 30 years. Ironically, capitalist military leadership from early 1960s through most of the 80’s instilled a culture of pragmatism and discipline that drove an economic boom known as “ the miracle on the Han River.” South Korea has the world’s 11th largest economy in the present day, specializing in high-tech manufacturing and boasting an excellent university system. The Sixth Republic of South Korea was established as a liberal democracy in 1987, and the nation has been politically stable ever since. North Korea’s initial growth slowed as quickly as South Korea’s accelerated. Poor centralized planning, corruption, and high military spending put North Korea in massive debt. The Soviet Union reduced its financial and logistical support for North Korea since North Korea aligned itself with China during communist-bloc stryfe, the flow of aid stopped altogether following the USSR’s collapse in 1991. The end of the USSR harmed North Korean industry so much that its overall economy contracted 25% during the 1990’s. Almost all of North Korea’s 25 2 O'Connor, Tom. “This is why North Korea hates the U.S.” Newsweek, 9 May 2017, www.newsweek.com/us- forget-korean-war-led-crisis-north-592630. 3 “Ingolf Vogeler, Types of International Borders along the U.S.-Mexico Border.” Types of International Borders, www.siue.edu/GEOGRAPHY/ONLINE/Vogeler/FortifiedMilitarizedBorders.htm. million citizens live in poverty and the GDP per capita remains 583 U.S. dollars per year. That is less than one 47th of South Korea’s per capita GDP. North Korea’s began pursuing nuclearization in 1962, when the national government committed to its currently policy of hyper-militarization, called "all-fortressization".4 It asked the Soviet Union for help developing its own nuclear weapons, but the Soviets only agreed to help with the development of peaceful nuclear energy. North Korea reached out to China for help with nuclear weapons after China successfully developed and demonstrated the technology, but it refused to provide support as well. Frustrated, Kim Il Sung officially launched North Korea’s nuclear program in the 1980s, claiming that nuclear weapons would enable the country to defend itself from any U.S. and South Korean aggression without help from the Soviets or Chinese.5 It was also widely believed among North Korean elites that a nuclear arsenal would boost North Korea’s international stature. After all, there is no question that nuclear tests bring international media attention and boost domestic nationalist pride. North Korea ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1985.