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With nearly twenty-five million citizens, a secretive totalitarian dictatorship, and active nuclear and ballistic missile weapons programs, North Korea presents some of the world's most difficult foreign policy challenges. For decades, the United States and its partners have employed multiple strategies in an effort to prevent Pyongyang from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Washington has moved from the Agreed Framework under President Bill Clinton to George W. Bush's denunciation of the regime as part of the \"axis of evil\" to a posture of \"strategic patience\" under Barack Obama. Given that a new president will soon occupy the White House, policy expert Walter C. Clemens Jr. argues that now is the time to reconsider US diplomatic efforts in North Korea. InNorth Korea and the World, Clemens poses the question, \"Can, should, and must we negotiate with a regime we regard as evil?\" Weighing the needs of all the stakeholders -- including China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea -- he concludes that the answer is yes. After assessing nine other policy options, he makes the case for engagement and negotiation with the regime. There still may be time to freeze or eliminate North Korea's weapons of mass destruction. Grounded in philosophy and history, this volume offers a fresh road map for negotiators and outlines a grand bargain that balances both ethical and practical security concerns.

In Among Women across Worlds, Suzy Kim explores the transnational connections between North Korean women and the global women's movement. Asian women, especially communists, are often depicted as victims of a patriarchal state. Kim challenges this view through extensive archival research, revealing that North Korean women asserted themselves from the late 1940s to 1975, before the Korean War began and up to the UN's International Women's Year. Kim centers on North Korea and the \"East\" to present a new genealogy of the global women's movement. Women of the Korean Democratic Women's Union (KDWU), part of the global left women's movement led by the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF), argued that family and domestic issues should be central to both national and international debates. They highlighted the connections between race, nationality, sex, and class in systems of exploitation. Their intersectional program proclaimed \"no peace without justice,\" \"the personal is the political,\" and \"women's rights are human rights,\" long before Western activists adopted these ideas. Among Women across Worlds uncovers movements and ideas foundational to today's era.

Purpose- This study aims to examine how North Korea strategically employs the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process to reinforce domestic legitimacy and navigate international human rights norms without compromising its authoritarian control. Design, Methodology, Approach-The study conducts a discourse analysis of North Korea's national reports from four UPR cycles (2009-2024) alongside relevant civil society submissions to reveal the regime's approach to addressing international human rights obligations. Findings-North Korea selectively aligns itself with international norms that support its ideological framework while rejecting those that threaten its authority. This selective engagement allows the regime to project an international image of cooperation and modernization while maintaining strict domestic control. The concept of \"international engagement legitimacy\" explains how the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) leverages the UPR to strengthen its domestic legitimacy without implementing substantive reforms. Practical Implications- A comprehensive understanding of North Koreass strategic adaptation of international norms will allow the global community to develop effective policies and engagement strategies. These strategies should consider the regime's motivations and the complex relationship between international participation and domestic legitimacy. Originality, Value- This research introduces the concept of \"international engagement legitimacy, offering a novel perspective on how authoritarian regimes engage with international human rights mechanisms. It challenges traditional socialization models and enriches the discourse on human rights adoption within authoritarian contexts.

As South Korea pursues national objectives of security and prosperity, it must also contend with a third strategic imperative--the desire for unification--which complicates its domestic and foreign policymaking. This article illustrates and analyzes change and continuity in the relationship between the two Koreas, placing developments during the administration of President Yoon Suk-yeol in broader historical context. It demonstrates that over the course of South Korea's modern democratic history, each ROK president has offered his or her own approach to North Korea, based on what the president believes are to be the right priorities, sequencing, and processes for inter-Korean relations and on what s/he believes has and has not worked under previous administrations. These approaches, in turn, have combined with domestic political and military developments in North Korea and changing regional and international context to shape the ebb and flow of inter-Korean relations.

The article examines the European Union (EU)'s policy toward and interactions with North Korea (DPRK) in order to answer the question, \"To what extent, despite prima facie ruptures in the relationship, has the EU been engaged with the DPRK, which is conventionally understood as an unreliable state.\" Although the EU is seemingly inactive in North Korean affairs, yet it is a powerful institution that can play a significant role in the peacemaking process in Asia including on the Korean peninsula. This article explores, firstly, how the EU's policy toward Asia has evolved historically; secondly, how far such an agenda and principles have been implemented in the North Korean context; and finally, the extent to which previous practices pave the way for the two parties to be included in the process of forming a kind of extended regional governance in future. A common view is that the EU's strategical/political motivation for getting involved in North Korean affairs is negligible due to a lack of economic interests to counterbalance high political risks. This article highlights that, contrary to the common understanding of its soft issue-focused approach to Asia, the EU has been persistently engaged in DPRK affairs, notwithstanding the significant structural barriers. This role underpins the EU's growing intention and potential to enhance interactions under the aegis of comprehensive security (third generation cooperation) covering the economic, social, cultural, and human security-focused aspects of the relationship.

China's policy of returning North Koreans without a previous screening of their particular cases goes against international agreements, such as the Refugee Convention and Protocol. Multiple organizations have discussed this issue, quoting from legal documents as well as anonymized interviews. What this essay aims to do is present autobiographical texts that deal with the same topic but from a personal point of view. The conditions of North Koreans in China, relived in testimonial accounts, deserve special attention because of their first-person account of victimization. This essay situates North Korean women's memoirs within the tradition of life writing for testimonial purposes, aimed at raising awareness of the critical absence of human rights in the context of North Korean refugees, and the ongoing atrocities committed against girls and women.

This article seeks to answer the questions of whether sanctions are 'smart' as designed and why if they are not. Evidence appears to suggest that smart sanctions are not 'intelligent' enough to change political leaders' alleged violent behavior or to protect innocent civilians from direct or physical as well as indirect or structural violence. Targeted government officials can always find ways to outsmart the sanction sender actors by resisting the latter's coercive efforts because of their willingness and ability to take repressive action against their people and find alternative trading partners as well as support from powerful undemocratic states. Instead of minimizing human suffering, sanctions tend to exacerbate regime insecurity and perpetuate international alliance politics. The cases of Myanmar and North Korea validate this proposition.

I examine the experiences of South Korean nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provide aid to North Korea in order to assess the success and limitations of the NGO movement. With reference to the political role of NGOs in constructivist theory, I identify three factors that have hindered the formation of a sustainable partnership between the South Korean government and NGOs since the inter-Korean summit of 2000. First, South Korean NGOs have lacked consistent efforts toward transparency and accountability in operations and organizational management. Second, the great increase in inter-Korean cooperation and exchange after 2000 weakened the research, education, and advocacy function of NGOs. Third, aid NGOs failed to establish independent, diversified, and stable funding mechanisms, decreasing their capacity to act as cooperative partners of the government.

Despite over a decade of collective efforts on the part of the international community, the North Korean human rights issue remains prevalent and pervasive. I propose \"Korean human rights\" as an alternative concept and approach for South Korea to constructively contribute to improving the human rights situation in North Korea. The notion of Korean human rights can be used as a method to overcome the limitations that both South Korea and the international community have faced in the past and a framework for effectively applying international human rights conventions at the regional level.

First, this paper considers human rights resolution about North Korea by the United Nations, North Korean Human Rights of 2004 by the United States, and North Korean Human Rights Act of 2016 by South Korea. And then the paper analyzes consequences of these resolutions and legislation. The approach is qualitative and expository; it consults area studies, social science, and journalism; it observes recent past and current North Korean human right violations and their responses, and it makes informed policy suggestions. This research note found that there is a discrepancy between the intended purposes of resolutions and legislations by the UN & Western countries and their actual policies toward North Korean human rights. As North Korea has continued to test fire nuclear weapons and missiles, the UN has gradually reduced its humanitarian aid to North Korean people. In the meantime, North Korean human rights violations have increased rather than decreased. The value of the paper lies in its explanation of why the use of human right abuses by the UN, the U.S., and U.S. allies to improve North Korean human rights have backfired. In other words, these resolutions and legislations have been ineffective in protecting and enhancing North Korean human rights.