HHK director addresses ongoing challenges along the 'underground RR' in 7/26 Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies-HRNK(D.C.) conference in Seoul

PROGRAM

Date: Wednesday, July 26, 2016

Venue: Main Conference Hall, Cyber Building, HUFS

Opening Ceremony……………………………………………………………. Greg Scarlatoiu

Moderator

Executive Director, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

Keynote Speaker…………………………………………………………. H.E. Choi Seokyoung

Visiting Professor/Ambassador Retired,

Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University

Speakers

Signe Poulsen

Representative, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Seoul)

Hyeonseo Lee

President and CEO, North Star NK

Author, The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

Tim Peters

Founder-Managing Director, Helping Hands Korea

Kim Kwang-jin

Senior Researcher, ROK Institute for National Security Strategy

Non-resident Fellow, HRNK

Q & A Session………………………………………………………………………… Moderator
Closing Ceremony…………………………………………….……………………… Moderator
Commemorative Photograph

The North Korean Human Rights Situation

For almost 70 years, North Korea’s human rights record has been abysmal. Over a quarter century after the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, North Korea’s Kim regime has maintained its absolute grip on power, while accomplishing two hereditary transmissions of power: from Kim Il-sung to Kim Jong-il in July 1994, and from Kim Jong-il to Kim Jong-un in December 2011. The primary strategic objective of the Kim regime continues to be its own self-preservation, regardless of the toll imposed on the North Korean people’s fundamental human rights.

Although North Korea is bound, as a UN member state, by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and although it is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Genocide Convention, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, each and every conceivable human right continues to be violated in that country. In the year 2016, 120,000 men, women, and children, continue to be brutally persecuted behind the barbed wire fences of North Korea’s political prison camps, subjected to unrelenting induced malnutrition, forced labor, torture, sexual violence as well as public and secret executions. Those suspected of being disloyal to the regime, of being, from the regime’s viewpoint, wrong-thinkers, wrong-doers, of possessing wrong knowledge, of having engaged in wrong associations, or of coming from the wrong family background, are subjected to extrajudicial arrest and detention, often together with members of three generations of their families. They are held in North Korea’s hidden gulag indefinitely, in most cases without charge or hope for recourse.

In the year 2016, pursuant to Songbun— a system of social discrimination established in the 1950s—the people of North Korea continue to be divided into three social categories and 51 subcategories, based on their degree of loyalty to the regime, and on the perceived allegiance of their parents and grandparents. Their access to food, jobs, and any type of opportunity continues to depend on their social classification. In the mid to late 1990s, as up to 3 million North Koreans starved to death, the Kim regime continued to invest in the development of its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, and purchased dozens of jet fighters.

Human Rights Trends under the Kim Jong-un Regime

The human rights situation has deteriorated under the Kim Jong-un regime. Three trends stand out in particular: an aggressive crackdown on attempted defections—the number of North Korean escapees arriving in South Korea declined by almost 50% from 2011 to 2012/2016; an aggressive purge—culminating in the execution of Jang Sung-taek, the leader’s uncle, and his associates in December 2013, with around 80 senior officials reportedly executed since 2012; and the “restructuring” of North Korea’s political prison camp system—facilities near the border with China have been closed, while other camps have been expanded.

The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI)

On March 21, 2013, the United Nations Human Rights Council—composed of 47 UN member states—adopted by consensus a resolution to establish a “Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (COI).” While NGOs such as HRNK, tasked to monitor, research and report on the North Korean human rights situation, had been aware of the extent of the North Korean human rights violations for many years, this was the first time that an investigative body was established by the United Nations to determine the extent and gravity of North Korea’s human rights abuses.

After investigating “the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights” in North Korea, the COI released its report on February 17, 2014, one month ahead of the formal submission to the UN Human Rights Council on March 17. The report finds that “in many instances, the violations found entailed crimes against humanity based on State policies.”

In 2014 and 2015, both the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly passed resolutions including strong language on crimes against humanity committed pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the state in North Korea, and the recommendation that the UN Security Council submit the North Korean case to the International Criminal Court. In December 2014, the UN Security Council voted to include North Korean human rights in its agenda, next to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. The mandate of the Panel of Experts to assist the 1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee in conjunction with Resolution 2270 was also renewed in March 2015 and March 2016. Following up on the recommendations of the UN COI, in June 2015, a UN field office was established in Seoul to continue the commission’s investigative work. On November 18, 2015, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly approved draft resolution A/C.3/70/L.35 on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea with 112 votes for, 19 against, and 50 abstentions. The country-specific resolution was adopted on December 17, 2015 with 119 votes for, 19 against, and 48 abstentions.

The COI’s Findings

The COI has determined that systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been, and are being, committed by North Korea. These include:

arbitrary detention, torture, executions and enforced disappearance to political prison camps;
violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion;
discrimination on the basis of State-assigned social class, gender, and disability
violations of the freedom of movement and residence, including the right to leave one’s own country;
violations of the right to food and related aspects of the right to life ; and
enforced disappearance of persons from other countries, including through international abductions.

In light of the gravity, scale and level of organization of these violations, the COI has concluded that crimes against humanity have been committed by officials of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, pursuant to policies established at the highest level of the State. These crimes against humanity involve extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation. The COI has also established that crimes against humanity continue to be committed in North Korea because the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place.

One of the most important determinations made by the COI is that North Korea can be characterized as a totalitarian state that does not content itself with ensuring the authoritarian rule of a small group of people, but seeks to dominate every aspect of its citizens’ lives and terrorizes them from within. In other words, the COI has found that crimes against humanity and other abysmal human rights violations are at the very core of the North Korean regime’s modus operandi. The COI has characterized North Korea as “a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world,” due to the “gravity, scale, and nature of the violations committed” by the North Korean regime.

The Victims of North Korea’s Crimes against Humanity

The COI determined that crimes against humanity target anyone viewed as a threat to the political system and leadership of North Korea, in particular:

the estimated 80,000-120,000 inmates of the DPRK’s political prison camps;
inmates of other detention facilities, including political prisoners;
persons who try to escape North Korea, in particular those forcibly repatriated by China to conditions of danger;
religious believers, Christians in particular;
people considered to introduce “subversive” influences into North Korea, such as those who smuggle South Korean video material into North Korea, or those who are suspected of having had contacts with South Koreans;
the COI determined that crimes against humanity have been committed by deliberately starving selected segments of the North Korean population, in particular during the great famine of the 1990s. The purpose of de facto condemning targeted groups to death by starvation was the preservation of North Korea’s leadership and political system;
the COI found that crimes against humanity have been, and are being committed against the citizens of the Republic of Korea, Japan, and other countries abducted by agents of the North Korean regime.

The Way Forward

Although North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs continue to take center stage, it is essential to continue to investigate and interview witnesses, and to continue to bring attention to the systematic, widespread crimes against humanity and egregious human rights violations perpetrated by the North Korean regime, to protect the victims, to bring justice to their tormentors, and, without further delay, to seek ways to improve the human rights situation in that country.

Keynote Speaker

Ambassador Choi Seokyoung

Visiting Professor/Ambassador retired

Graduate School of International Studies

Seoul National University

Ambassador Choi Seokyoung was born in Kangleung, Korea in 1955. He was educated at Seoul National University (BA), the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management (MBA).

After joining the Korean Foreign Ministry in 1979, he served various postings in Korean Embassies in Kenya, Germany, and in Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva. He has been involved in multilateral diplomacy in the fields of trade, the environment and economic affairs, and has acted as a representative of the Korean Government for a number of UN, WTO, APEC and other multilateral organizations organized and sponsored conferences.

Ambassador Choi was ROK Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva during a critical time in addressing the North Korean human rights situation (2012–2015). He chaired various UN related meetings including the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, and also served as adviser to the President of the UN General Assembly in 2001 in economic and social fields. During 2002-2003, he served as Korea’s Deputy Senior Official to APEC and as the Korean Representative to the APEC Committee on Trade and Investment while holding the position of the Convenor of the Group on Services of APEC. He was Deputy Executive Director of APEC Secretariat in 2004 and was the 13th APEC Secretariat Executive Director. He has served as the Permanent Representative of Korea to the WTO and has been the Chairman of the WTO Council for Trade in Services.

He is the author of numerous articles particularly in the fields of trade and environment as well as the climate change negotiations.

Moderator

Greg Scarlatoiu

Executive Director
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

Faculty Member
HUFS ISS

Greg Scarlatoiu is Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) in Washington, D.C. At HRNK, he plans, coordinates, manages and conducts research and outreach programs aiming to focus world attention on human rights abuses in North Korea, and to seek creative solutions for improving the human rights situation in that country. A regular guest on CNN and Al Jazeera TV as well as the John Batchelor radio show, he has authored a weekly radio column broadcast by Radio Free Asia to North Korea for twelve years. A returning visiting professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) in Seoul, Scarlatoiu co-chairs the Korea and Japan class at the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on several occasions, and given lectures addressing the Korean peninsula at numerous U.S. academic institutions as well as other venues in Asia, North and South America, and Europe. Now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Scarlatoiu was born and raised in communist Romania under the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. He lived in Seoul for 10 years and is fluent in Korean, French and Romanian. He holds MAs in international relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and Seoul National University, and a BA in international relations from Seoul National University. In 1999, Scarlatoiu was conferred the title of Citizen of Honor, City of Seoul. Scarlatoiu is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Council on Korean Studies (ICKS).

Prior to joining HRNK, Scarlatoiu was the Director of Public Affairs and Business Issues of the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, he planned, designed and implemented outreach programs to educate Americans on developments on the Korean peninsula and U.S.-Korea relations both inside and outside of Washington, DC. Before his work with KEI, he was Management Associate for the International Science and Technology Institute, Inc. (ISTI) in Arlington, Virginia. He was tasked with business development, project management, technical assistance implementation, and liaising with multilateral and bilateral development agencies, partners, and clients under USAID, World Bank and Asian Development Bank projects worldwide.

Speakers

Signe Poulsen

Representative

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Seoul)

Signe Poulsen has served as the Representative of OHCHR(Seoul) since August 2015. Prior to this, she served in various capacities for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights including postings in Liberia, Timor-Leste, Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea. Before joining the United Nations Ms. Poulsen worked in international human rights organizations including Amnesty International. She is a Danish national and holds a MSc. From the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Lee Hyeonseo

President and CEO

North Star NK

Author

The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

Hyeonseo Lee is a North Korean defector living in Seoul, South Korea. Her recently published memoir, The Girl with Seven Names – A North Korean Defector’s Story, has been published in 18 languages in 25 countries. Over 8 million people have viewed her TED Talk (including the cross-posting on Youtube) about her life in North Korea, her escape to China and struggle to bring her family to freedom. Oprah called it, “The most riveting Ted Talk ever.” Hyeonseo has given testimony about North Korean human rights in front of a special panel of the UN Security Council in 2014 and at the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2016. She’s also discussed North Korean human rights issues with various officials, including UN Ambassador Samantha Powers.

Hyeonseo has written articles for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. She has also been interviewed by TIME, BBC, CNN, Reuters, AP, AFP, NYT, FOX, CBS, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Glamour magazine and countless other television, newspaper and radio outlets throughout the world. She is currently writing her second book with other female North Koreans living in South Korea, and is starting an NGO, “North Star NK,” to help North Korean refugees improve their lives and interact with the international community.

Tim A. Peters

Founder-Managing Director

Helping Hands Korea (HHK)/Catacombs

Tim Peters is a Christian activist whose service has spanned four decades, six countries, as well as the Caribbean and Polynesian Islands. He currently resides with his wife, Sun-mi, in Seoul, South Korea where he has lived and labored on three separate occasions for a total of nearly 25 years since 1975. Tim and Sun-mi have five grown children and four grandchildren.

Under his leadership, Helping Hands Korea in 1996 experienced a major shift of focus from projects in South Korea to the needs of North Koreans in crisis. In response to news of famine in North Korea, Helping Hands Korea launched a small program to provide food aid to the most vulnerable sectors of North Korean society. Through these efforts, unorthodox avenues of aid delivery were developed to maximize transparency in monitoring, a chronic challenge to humanitarian groups in North Korea. From 1998, Helping Hands Korea undertook the additional task of assisting North Koreans in China who had fled famine and oppression in their own country only to find their lives also at risk in China. Aid to North Korean refugees in China includes secret shelters, food, clothing, emergency medical treatment, as well as spiritual guidance and comfort. Logistical support is given to refugees for escape to third countries via the so-called ‘underground railroad’ in certain crisis conditions. Since 2005, aid by HHK in China to orphaned children of forcibly repatriated North Korean refugee women has grown significantly.

Mr. Peters has also worked in a variety of secular jobs to support his family and Christian activities in the tradition of a ‘tentmaker missionary.’ In addition to a number of teaching positions, he has also worked as an editor and speechwriter for the Korean National Commission for UNESCO, the Korean National Red Cross and the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) in Seoul. In early 2004, he was approached by the World Economic Forum to prepare a paper that would outline the current predicament of North Korean refugees in China, to project worst-case and best-case scenarios of this crisis as well as to recommend practical measures to help the 300,000 North Korean refugees in China. Mr. Peters’ has given U.S. Congressional testimony on three occasions between 2002 and 2005.His written submission for the April 28, 2004 hearing of the House of Representatives’ International Relations Committee, Subcommittee of Asia and the Pacific, entitled “Korean Pathetique: A Symphony of Refugee Tears Unheeded” contains the essence of his analysis and policy recommendations as submitted to the World Economic Forum. This analysis of the multi-faceted North Korean refugee problem with proposed solutions has been referenced in the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, 2009, (v.3) by Oxford University Press.

Mr. Peters’ activism was profiled in a TIME magazine cover story (Asia) on May 1^st of 2006. His missionary work has also been highlighted in Newsweek (Asia), The Sunday Times (London), New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Washington Times, BBC, NPR, ABC’s Nightline, Korea Times, Christianity Today, the award-winning documentary, Seoul Train, and the major 2012 book release by author Melanie Kirkpatrick, Escape from North Korea, The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad. The Wall Street Journal recommended Peters for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Peters won the 2008 St. Stephen’s Prize in Oslo, presented by Norway’s former Prime Minister, Kjell Bondevik, on behalf of Stephanus Alliance International.

Kim Kwang-jin

Senior Researcher

ROK Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS)/HRNK

As non-resident fellow at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Mr. Kim Kwang-jin is an invaluable experienced resource shedding light into the darkest corners of the North Korean regime‘s secret and illegal international financial operations. His revelations have saved re-insurance companies tens of millions of dollars and brought an end to an important method the corrupt regime purloined from foreign sources the funds it needed to maintain its internal oppression.

In September 2003, Kim Kwang-jin and his family rushed to an airport in Southeast Asia to fly to freedom in Seoul, South Korea. Months earlier, Mr. Kim lived a privileged life working for the government’s overseas banking operations in Singapore. Then, Mr. Kim fell out of favor after he was suspected of leaking information about the regime to foreign nationals. Before being summoned back to North Korea to face severe punishment, Kim made the decision to defect with his family. During his banking career, Mr. Kim helped earn millions of dollars for what he calls North Korea’s “Royal Court Economy,” i.e., the enterprises and often illegal schemes that financially supported the country’s totalitarian regime.

Since arriving in South Korea, Mr. Kim has served as an analyst at the ROK Institute for National Security Strategy. A household name on TV and radio programs addressing North Korea, he has worked as a consultant for the ROK Unification Ministry as well as media organizations including KBS, MBC, and RFA. He is a standing member of the ROK National Unification Advisory Council (NUAC). His educational background includes completion of Ph.D. course work and an MBA in Finance and Insurance from Kookmin University (Seoul, 2014, 2012), a Master’s in Economics/IT of North Korea at the University of North Korean Studies (Seoul, 2008), and a BA in British Literature from Kim Il Sung University (Pyongyang, 1989). Working for the North Korean regime, Mr. Kim served as Singapore Representative of North East Asia Bank (2002-2003); an agent of the Korean Foreign Insurance Company and North East Asia Bank, Pyongyang, (1998-2002), and Professor of the Pyongyang Computer College (1991-1997). He has published numerous papers and articles on the North Korean economy and the current power transition in North Korea, including: “Gulag, Inc.—The Use of Forced Labor in North Korea’s Export Industries” (HRNK, 2016); “After Kim Jong-il: Can We Hope for Better Human Rights Protection?” (HRNK, 2009, 2011); “Financial Institutions in North Korea and Their Role”(2016); “North Korea’s Provocations after Presidential Elections in South Korea”(2012); “On KWP’s Role and Its Prospect in Power Transition to Kim Jong-eun” (2011); “The Defector’s Tale, Inside North Korea’s Secret Economy”, World Affairs Journal (2011); “Kim Jong Il’s Royal Court Economy and Destruction of the People’s Economy” (2008); “The Change of North Korea’s Foreign Exchange Control System and its Increasing Dependence on Foreign Currency” (2008); “The Dollarization of North Korea Economy and Kim Jong Il’s Royal Court Economy” (2007); “The Korea Foreign Trade Bank and North Korea’s Foreign Exchange Control System” (2007); and “The US Financial Sanctions Regime on North Korea and Its Prospect” (2006)

PROGRAM

Date: Wednesday, July 26, 2016

Venue: Main Conference Hall, Cyber Building, HUFS

Opening Ceremony……………………………………………………………. Greg Scarlatoiu

Moderator

Executive Director, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

Keynote Speaker…………………………………………………………. H.E. Choi Seokyoung

Visiting Professor/Ambassador Retired,

Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University

Speakers………………………………………………………………………….. Signe Poulsen

Representative, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Seoul)

Hyeonseo Lee

President and CEO, North Star NK

Author, The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

Tim Peters

Founder-Managing Director, Helping Hands Korea

Kim Kwang-jin

Senior Researcher, ROK Institute for National Security Strategy

Non-resident Fellow, HRNK

Q & A Session………………………………………………………………………… Moderator
Closing Ceremony…………………………………………….……………………… Moderator
Commemorative Photograph

The North Korean Human Rights Situation

Human Rights Trends under the Kim Jong-un Regime

The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI)

The COI’s Findings

The COI has determined that systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been, and are being, committed by North Korea. These include:

arbitrary detention, torture, executions and enforced disappearance to political prison camps;
violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion;
discrimination on the basis of State-assigned social class, gender, and disability
violations of the freedom of movement and residence, including the right to leave one’s own country;
violations of the right to food and related aspects of the right to life ; and
enforced disappearance of persons from other countries, including through international abductions.

The Victims of North Korea’s Crimes against Humanity

The COI determined that crimes against humanity target anyone viewed as a threat to the political system and leadership of North Korea, in particular:

the estimated 80,000-120,000 inmates of the DPRK’s political prison camps;
inmates of other detention facilities, including political prisoners;
persons who try to escape North Korea, in particular those forcibly repatriated by China to conditions of danger;
religious believers, Christians in particular;
people considered to introduce “subversive” influences into North Korea, such as those who smuggle South Korean video material into North Korea, or those who are suspected of having had contacts with South Koreans;
the COI determined that crimes against humanity have been committed by deliberately starving selected segments of the North Korean population, in particular during the great famine of the 1990s. The purpose of de facto condemning targeted groups to death by starvation was the preservation of North Korea’s leadership and political system;
the COI found that crimes against humanity have been, and are being committed against the citizens of the Republic of Korea, Japan, and other countries abducted by agents of the North Korean regime.

The Way Forward

Keynote Speaker

Ambassador Choi Seokyoung

Visiting Professor/Ambassador retired

Graduate School of International Studies

Seoul National University

He is the author of numerous articles particularly in the fields of trade and environment as well as the climate change negotiations.

Moderator

Greg Scarlatoiu

Executive Director
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

Faculty Member
HUFS ISS

Speakers

Signe Poulsen

Representative

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Seoul)

Lee Hyeonseo

President and CEO

North Star NK

Author

The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

Tim A. Peters

Founder-Managing Director

Helping Hands Korea (HHK)/Catacombs

Kim Kwang-jin

Senior Researcher

ROK Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS)/HRNK

PROGRAM

Date: Wednesday, July 26, 2016

Venue: Main Conference Hall, Cyber Building, HUFS

Opening Ceremony……………………………………………………………. Greg Scarlatoiu

Moderator

Executive Director, Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

Keynote Speaker…………………………………………………………. H.E. Choi Seokyoung

Visiting Professor/Ambassador Retired,

Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University

Speakers………………………………………………………………………….. Signe Poulsen

Representative, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Seoul)

Hyeonseo Lee

President and CEO, North Star NK

Author, The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

Tim Peters

Founder-Managing Director, Helping Hands Korea

Kim Kwang-jin

Senior Researcher, ROK Institute for National Security Strategy

Non-resident Fellow, HRNK

Q & A Session………………………………………………………………………… Moderator
Closing Ceremony…………………………………………….……………………… Moderator
Commemorative Photograph

The North Korean Human Rights Situation

Human Rights Trends under the Kim Jong-un Regime

The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI)

The COI’s Findings

The COI has determined that systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been, and are being, committed by North Korea. These include:

arbitrary detention, torture, executions and enforced disappearance to political prison camps;
violations of the freedoms of thought, expression and religion;
discrimination on the basis of State-assigned social class, gender, and disability
violations of the freedom of movement and residence, including the right to leave one’s own country;
violations of the right to food and related aspects of the right to life ; and
enforced disappearance of persons from other countries, including through international abductions.

The Victims of North Korea’s Crimes against Humanity

The COI determined that crimes against humanity target anyone viewed as a threat to the political system and leadership of North Korea, in particular:

the estimated 80,000-120,000 inmates of the DPRK’s political prison camps;
inmates of other detention facilities, including political prisoners;
persons who try to escape North Korea, in particular those forcibly repatriated by China to conditions of danger;
religious believers, Christians in particular;
people considered to introduce “subversive” influences into North Korea, such as those who smuggle South Korean video material into North Korea, or those who are suspected of having had contacts with South Koreans;
the COI determined that crimes against humanity have been committed by deliberately starving selected segments of the North Korean population, in particular during the great famine of the 1990s. The purpose of de facto condemning targeted groups to death by starvation was the preservation of North Korea’s leadership and political system;
the COI found that crimes against humanity have been, and are being committed against the citizens of the Republic of Korea, Japan, and other countries abducted by agents of the North Korean regime.

The Way Forward

Keynote Speaker

Ambassador Choi Seokyoung

Visiting Professor/Ambassador retired

Graduate School of International Studies

Seoul National University

He is the author of numerous articles particularly in the fields of trade and environment as well as the climate change negotiations.

Moderator

Greg Scarlatoiu

Executive Director
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

Faculty Member
HUFS ISS

Speakers

Signe Poulsen

Representative

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Seoul)

Lee Hyeonseo

President and CEO

North Star NK

Author

The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story

Tim A. Peters

Founder-Managing Director

Helping Hands Korea (HHK)/Catacombs

Kim Kwang-jin

Senior Researcher

ROK Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS)/HRNK