Human Rights Updates

The former laughingstock called the National Human Rights Commission of Korea is planning to release a North Korea human rights “road map” this fall.

On a related note, congratulations to Open News’s Young Howard, who now has the cred and the means to host a conference on human rights in North Korea. Open News also notes that Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik has emerged as a leading advocate of this issue to the still-worthless Ban Ki-Moon and a strong advocate of the “responsibility to protect” (RTP) doctrine, even at the expense of national sovereignty.

I’ve never been completely comfortable with extending the RTP doctrine to this degree — I think it could easily be extended into something pernicious — although I do think it applies well to North Korea for two important reasons. First, I see the primary responsibility to provide food, clothing, and shelter as primarily the individual’s responsibility, but of course, when a government usurps the individual’s means to provide for himself and his family, the state assumes the responsibility to provide. Second, I’m one of those archaic sorts who sees sovereignty as invested in the people of a nation, not just the ones with the keys to the helicopter gunships. I see no better way to measure the will of the people than elections, and until North Korea holds a free election, it’s difficult for me to see its ruling regime as having the requisite legitimacy to express the sovereign right to starve its citizens to death.