Antihuman Crime Investigation Committee Holds Seminar

A group I had not heard of, calling itself in English the Antihuman Crime Investigation Committee (반인도범죄조사위원회), held a seminar yesterday (Oct. 27th) at the Seoul Press Center in Gwanghwamun.

I received word of the event last-minute, and was only able to attend part of it, but here are some highlights.

After all the necessary introductions and congratulatory remarks (축사), Kim Tae-Jin, president of the Democracy Network against the North Korean Gulag (북한민주화운동본부) and himself originally from North Korea, gave the keynote address, in which he laid out some background and history of crimes against humanity in North Korea.

Next David Hawk (seated second from right in the photos immediately above and below) addressed ways to use international law to seek “Responsibility, Accountability and Redress for Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea.” He noted that dealing with worst-case situations has been a problem using the various international treaties available. For example, the Genocide Convention only applied to ethnic crimes, and often agreements had been written to apply only in war contexts. But the Rome Statue (adopted July 1998, went into effect July 2002, ratified by 110 countries to date), which created the International Criminal Court, provides a much more workable framework in general. However, this only applies to states who have ratified the statute, which North Korea has not done (the US also has not) — and it only applies to acts committed as of July 2002.

But Hawk recommended another way to get the ball rolling. He said that though it might not be easy, it may be possible to get the UN General Assembly to request the Secretary General to appoint a group of international law experts to conduct a “first look” prima facie investigation into crimes against humanity in NK. Situations in Cambodia, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda were similarly handled. He noted that this request could be inserted into the UN’s existing annual DPRK human rights resolution, which passes every year by a wide margin.

Hawk managed to pack a lot into his 10 or 15 minutes, also talking about an emerging framework in international law, the responsibility to protect. Whereas the ICC deals with individual accountability, this doctrine applies to the responsibility of a state to protect its citizens.

He also stressed that any claims for justice need to be sought by the victims themselves. This is now possible with the growing number of defectors living in the South.

Jared Genser, a force behind the Failure to Protect report (pictured speaking in photo below), spoke next in more detail about North Korea not exactly living up to its responsibility to protect its citizenry. One point he made was, “The starting point for dialogue with the North should be its commitments under international law…such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights…. Meeting these existing would go a long way towards restoring the rights of the North Korean people.” Incidentally, in reading up a bit on Genser, he obviously has quite a resume, and I found this article in an alumni publication about him quite compelling.

Below is a photo of a Japanese professor (in Korean his name was printed as 아라끼 가츠히로, the 대표 of 특수실종자조사회), who spoke — in Korean — about the Japanese abductee issue.  In the photo below he unfurled a poster with many photos of suspected Japanese abductees, though he said most of them have not been officially recognized as such by the Japanese government. The way he brought out his poster reminded me of how Dr. Vollertsen would bring his own well-worn poster (standing on far right) to NK human rights gatherings.  Dr. V, should you stumble upon this, how we miss you in Seoul!

Other participants included Kato Hiroshi (pictured second-from-left immediately above), the head of the Japanese NGO, Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, and Young Howard / 하태경 (pictured on the far right in the top two photos), the head of Open Radio for North Korea (열린북한방송), which is often cited in this blog.

Hiroshi brought things back down to earth by reminding everyone of the many major obstacles to attempting to try Kim Jong-il at the ICC — for example, should he actually be indicted, how would one ever be able to bring him before the court? He said that indicting KJI nonetheless would be a symbolic, helpful step. Unfortunately, I had to leave before I could hear Howard’s remarks.

The man sitting third from the left in the photo above was identified in the program as 우쩐룽, a Chinese dissident.  I *thought* I heard the translator say in my earpiece when he was introduced something along the lines of him being the first Chinese person to be granted refugee status in South Korea.  Doing a search at Naver didn’t turn up a lot, but the bottom paragraph in this article seems to confirm it.

Before the afternoon seminar, there was a petition drive nearby at Chunggyechun to bring Kim Jong-il before the ICC. This link has a couple photos including a shot of a few of the speakers signing the petition.

The petition drive predates the seminar. I found this page with a recent photo of students collecting signatures at Yonsei University (scroll down). Kim Tae-Jin in his speech mentioned that it was kicked off Oct. 9th in conjunction with Suzanne Scholte and over 20 NK human rights groups and aims to collect a million signatures.

Finally, a few interesting scenes. When I first walked off the elevator, there were several TV cameras waiting at the end of the hallway, and I felt like I had to walk a gauntlet (it took me a minute to dig out and ready my camera, this photo doesn’t do my memory justice, I swear!):

Also, during the introductory and congratulatory remarks, Hwang Jang-Yeop / 황장엽 made an appearance and briefly sat in the front row. Below is an example of the attention he receives when he walks into conferences.

Presumably one of the photographers above captured the photo of Hwang accompanying this article (scroll down).

Update:   Here’s an English-language article about the seminar.