Our Mission

Our mission is to inform policies that lead to the improvement of human rights in North Korea. We achieve this through providing practical policy advice, conducting informed research, and raising awareness across Europe on the key issues affecting North Koreans. We work alongside exiled North Koreans, governments, policymakers, politicians, nongovernmental organisations, and civil society in Europe to achieve our objectives.

Our Work

We undertake a range of private and public work that we believe to be crucial to the advancement of human rights in North Korea. In 2016, our public-facing work is focusing on three areas: Engagement with North Korea; Improving Media Reporting of North Korea; Empowering North Koreans.

Engagement with North Korea

Improving engagement with North Korea through the analysis of the effectiveness of ongoing engagement, the provision of practical policy advice on how to influence North Korean decision-makers, and the creation of policies that offer direct engagement with North Korean citizens.

Themes:

  • Advice on sustainable opportunities to engage North Korean citizens — from the political elite to the ordinary man and woman.
  • Facilitating opportunities which encourage the North Korean leadership to improve its policies towards its citizenry.
  • Improving knowledge on North Korean governance and providing blueprints on who to engage and how.

Improving Media Reporting of North Korea

Supporting socially responsible and representative media reporting of North Korea and offering opportunities that increase the flow of information into and out of North Korea.

Themes:

  • Providing a platform for North Korean voices — both elite exiles and ordinary civilians — and advocating for a greater reliance of first-hand knowledge of life inside North Korea within media outlets and public fora.
  • Publishing material obtained from inside North Korea and supporting the flow of information directly to the North Korean population.
  • Encouraging Europe’s media and cultural organisations to engage with the North Korean refugee community and to tell their stories.

Empowering North Koreans

Working to improve policies that impact the rights of North Koreans within their homeland and the lives of those who have escaped to Europe.

Themes:

  • Improving European asylum policy towards North Korean refugees.
  • Creating a consensus across Europe on the policies and mechanisms that can empower North Koreans to improve their lives.
  • Building a network North Korean refugees, advocates, policymakers, politicians, and civil society actors across Europe to improve awareness of human rights in North Korea.
  • Supporting programmes that improve the educational opportunities for North Korean refugees in European countries.

Policy & Research Papers