CHRNK Updates “Failure to Protect”

Recall that I characterized the original report as “the ultimate must-read” on human rights in North Korea.  The report was “sponsored” by Vaclav Havel, Kjell Magne Bondevik, and Elie Wiesel, but actually written by the law firm DLA Piper, in close cooperation with scholars from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.  The original 2006 report called for the U.N. to impose Chapter VII sanctions if the regime did not progress toward ending the mass murder and starvation of its people.  After two years of sadly typical U.N. inaction, but for some token or unenforced resolutions, CHRNK has released an updated version of “Failure to Protect,” which you can read at DLA Piper’s site in English and Korean.

On a related note, the State Department’s 2008 report on international religious freedom is also out.  The report’s section on North Korea is both extensive and hard-hitting, making it a rare exception to State’s recent airbrushing of criticism of the regime (like any big bureaucracy, State has factions that support different approaches).

The Czech media seem justifiably proud of Vaclav Havel’s role in “Failure to Protect,” and I can’t help but rue how much better a General Secretary he’d have been than the worthless, spineless, rudderless Ban Ki Moon.  The Australian calls for human rights to be moved back to the forefront of how the world deals with North Korea, but since “the world” at this point really means the State Department’s East Asia Bureau (EAP), that’s not going to happen.

Indeed, what I’m being told is that State is toying with the idea of “dual-hatting” the newly-elevated Special Envoy for Human Rights, to make him/her the same person who negotiates with the North Koreans in the “disarmament” process that abandoned all hope of real disarmament at least a year ago.  Leave aside that this would violate the law’s demand for a “full time” Special Envoy, since you can’t focus full time on human rights when your overwhelming emphasis is on creating the illusion of disarmament.  Why should we think that State would do a better job at closing down Camp 22 that it has at closing down Yongbyon?