South Korea Holds First Policy Meeting on North Korean Human Rights in Over 2 Years

South Korean conservative activists stage an anti-North Korea rally outside a state human rights committee in Seoul on Oct. 18, 2007. Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

South Korea will hold an interagency government meeting on North Korea’s human rights policies for the first time in over two years, as President Yoon Suk-yeol seeks to address Pyongyang’s human rights issues.

The meeting will be held on Aug. 25 and be presided over by Vice Unification Minister Kim Ki-woong. Officials from the ministries of justice and foreign affairs will be in attendance, the Unification Ministry’s spokesperson Cho Jong-hoon said on Monday.

Cho said the meeting would focus on South Korea’s implementation of the North Korean human rights policy, as well as the preparation of a report on the human rights situation in the hermit nation.

The last meeting on North Korean human rights was held on May 11, 2020. Yoon’s administration is taking a more assertive stance on the issue, a change from his predecessor Moon Jae-in, who put the policy on hold for fear of jeopardizing inter-Korean relations.

Yoon also appointed Lee Shin-hwa, a political science professor at Korea University, as an ambassador to oversee North Korea’s human rights. The position had been vacant since September 2017, Yonhap News Agency reported.

“I believe [my role] is to call on the North Korean regime to [ensure] not regime security but human security,” Lee said following her appointment on July 28.

Human Rights in North Korea ‘Deteriorated’

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said in his final report to the U.N. in March 2022 that human rights in the nuclear-armed nation had “deteriorated” over the past six years.

“Leaving North Korea in isolation and maintaining the status quo offers no solutions to help address the dire human rights situation there,” Quintana said.

The report stated that North Korea’s oppressive control over its populace has tightened with the enforcement of shoot-on-sight orders at the borders and “an anti-reactionary thought law” that carries the death penalty for accessing foreign material.

Chronic food insecurity persists in North Korea, which has likely worsened due to the pandemic-era border closures and the regime’s COVID-19 response measures, according to the report.

In March 2022, Human Rights Watch, along with 29 nongovernmental organizations and several individuals, wrote a joint letter to Moon criticizing his administration’s handling of North Korea’s human rights situation.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two countries on April 27, 2018. Korea Summit Press Pool via Reuters

They said the South Korean government “did not secure a durable peace in the Korean Peninsula and led to silence on North Korea’s horrific rights violations,” adding that South Korea has not c0sponsored resolutions on North Korean human rights issues at the U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly since 2019.

“We believe that it is crucial that South Korea changes course, and that your government sends a clear message to North Korea to end human rights violations and hold accountable those responsible for grave abuses,” the letter stated.

North Korea has conducted a series of missile launches in 2022, including one involving its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-17, all of which are banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions on Pyongyang’s missile program.