Engaging North Korea Using the Universal Periodic Review

Engaging North Korea Using the Universal Periodic Review looks to the European community’s options with regard to the betterment of the human rights situation in North Korea through the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK or North Korea) participation in the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR). Written in the midst of unprecedented global attention on human rights in North Korea, this paper addresses the question of ‘What next for Europe?’ It proposes how the European Union and European governments can work to ensure that the DPRK begins to move toward implementing the human rights obligations it freely accepted during its UPR, acknowledging that approaches used until now are unsuitable in this regard and that new approaches must be formulated.

Described by Marzuki Darusman, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the DPRK, as a “much-needed breakthrough,” the ground-breaking report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the DPRK documented the most egregious abuses of humanity in the modern era — including state-sanctioned starvation, the prolific use of torture, endemic sexual violence, and the use of political prison camps and public executions as tools of social control.

Redefining the rules of engagement with the North Korean government, the burgeoning body of evidence that implicates North Korean officials of crimes against humanity can no longer be questioned; nor can statesmen argue that North Korea cannot change: indeed, there is much scope for Europe and the international community’s approaches to the DPRK to change. Prior to the release of the Commission’s report, absent knowledge of the abuses committed by the North Korean state had limited global action. Today, Michael Kirby, the Commission’s Chair, notes that “There will be no excusing a failure of action because we didn't know.”

Soon after the release of the Commission’s report, the Second Cycle of the UPR offered an opportune platform for the world to once again press the DPRK on its human rights record. Under review and unprecedented international pressure, the DPRK acknowledged 113 recommendations put forward by the international community to improve its domestic human rights mechanisms. Now that the task of the Commission of Inquiry has ended, Europe must seize the opportunity presented by the UPR to protect the North Korean people and strengthen a liberal international normative order which protects all humanity. The UPR has offered the European Union and European states an established, practical, and multilateral framework to engage North Korean officials and citizens on human rights, whilst the DPRK’s response has betrayed to European governments an understanding of North Korea’s fragility and the leverage that can be gained through concerted pressure.

State-to-state engagement with the DPRK has rarely effected meaningful change in human rights for the North Korean people, but for Europe and the DPRK, the rules of international relations are now very different. Today, the DPRK government is unable to conceal its systematic and widespread violations of humanity and North Korean society has begun to shift its allegiance from the state to the market. For its part, Europe can no longer allow its criticism of DPRK policy to be confined to dialogue in international fora. Talk at the international seats of power must be followed by action on the ground. Pursuing the implementation of North Korea’s UPR recommendations is just one step in the long road to justice and peace for the people of the DPRK as they seek to regain their country.