Robert King calls for US attention on North Korean human rights

By Haley Gordon

It is the job of the United States special envoy for North Korean human rights to ensure that the U.S.'s North Korea policy considers human rights concerns. This role is arguably more important now than ever, in light of reports that the North is currently facing a humanitarian crisis due to COVID-19-related shortages and restrictions.

And yet, the position has remained vacant since January 2017, despite the fact that it is mandated by U.S. legislation. Donald Trump failed to appoint a new special envoy during the four years of his presidency, and six months into his term, President Joe Biden also has yet to fill the role.

Given that human rights are expected to be on the agenda for Biden's North Korea policy, former Ambassador Robert R. King's recent book, "Patterns of Impunity: Human Rights in North Korea and the Role of the U.S. Special Envoy" (Stanford, CA: Shorenstein APARC, 2021), is a particularly timely release.

This is the cover of "Patterns of Impunity: Human Rights in North Korea and the Role of the U.S. Special Envoy" written by former Ambassador Robert R. King.

King was the last official to serve as special envoy from November 2009 to January 2017, and the book documents his experiences in the role, covering an impressive range of North Korea's human rights abuses through the lens of King's own involvement in advocating for progress on them.

The book's overview of such issues will make it accessible to readers less familiar with North Korea's human rights problems, while King's seasoned perspective will prove invaluable to experts and longtime North Korea watchers.

Insights derived from King's diplomatic experience make "Patterns of Impunity" an important contribution to the literature on North Korean human rights, which often centers on the horrors taking place inside the country.

While not shying away from discussing these abuses, King instead focuses on how policy can be harnessed to address them. King's work with key U.S., North Korean, and international officials has given him a realistic perspective on difficult questions and hot-button issues.

For example, King emphasizes the U.S.'s concerted efforts to separate political and security issues from humanitarian ones, so that aid does not become a "bargaining chip" in denuclearization talks.

And yet, he reminds us that this is often easier said than done: Dealing with North Korea "involves obstacles that make it very difficult to separate humanitarian assistance from foreign policy," in part because "North Koreans always link the two in their own minds."

King is similarly pragmatic when discussing a topic that has become highly controversial in the past year thanks to South Korea's new so-called "anti-leaflet law."

Emphasizing the importance of information flows into the North, King argues that balloons carrying leaflets, money, and USBs across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) are "not the most efficient way of getting information into closed societies like North Korea."

This claim is in part derived from King's own expertise on information flows into the communist countries of Central Europe during the Cold War, and one of the strong points of "Patterns of Impunity" is a chapter in which he weaves insights from this era into an analysis of North Korea's present.

King acknowledges that the changing media landscape has seen a rise in importance of DVDs and USBs, in particular those bringing South Korean cultural content. However, he argues convincingly for the continued use of radio transmissions into North Korea via broadcasters such as Radio Free Asia.

Ultimately, "Patterns of Impunity" is a reminder that the North's human rights abuses extend beyond the borders of the hermit kingdom. They affect families separated by the Korean War that have yet to be reunited, Japanese individuals who have been abducted by the North Korean regime, foreign nationals who have been detained and abused in the North, and North Korean defectors seeking new lives in China and beyond.

King is realistic about how painstakingly difficult it is to achieve progress on these issues ― but he illustrates that pressing for change can yield results. He points to the improvement of rights of the disabled in North Korea as one victory.

Another came in the wake of the high-profile 2014 Commission of Inquiry report on the country's human rights situation: North Korean officials showed increased willingness to engage with U.N. human rights mechanisms after the report's release, although the regime publicly denounced its findings as fiction.

Yet such progress slowed in recent years, when the Trump administration pursued an ultimately fruitless strategy of prioritizing security issues at the expense of human rights. U.S. leadership on North Korean human rights, King shows, matters. "Patterns of Impunity" is a testament to the importance of the special envoy in enabling that leadership.

Haley Gordon (hmgordon@stanford.edu) is a researcher at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.