Kipoom Jeong, M.A. Candidate at Seoul National University, highlights the importance of developing South Korea’s stance to ameliorate the human rights condition in North Korea based on the understanding of how other states react to it. She compares the two different approaches of the United States and European nations toward North Korean human ri...

Taekyoon Kim, Professor of International Development at the Graduate School of International Studies and an Associate Dean for Public Affairs & Communication at Seoul National University, highlights the importance of approaching humanitarian aid and development cooperation from a dual-dilemma perspective. He provides an overview of an existing dile...

In this Commentary, Juhyun Um, Secretary General at Medical Aid for Children, provides an overview of international and South Korean aid initiatives in North Korea and examines North Korea’s current perspective on humanitarian assistance. The author analyzes that Pyongyang’s official refusal of humanitarian assistance in 2014 is a multidimensio...

In this Research Review, Keum Soon Lee, Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification examines how the North Korean human rights issue, which has emerged as a major threat to peace on the Korean peninsula along with North Korea’s nuclear proliferation, has become publicized in the international community. The article furt...

The unexpected spread of COVID-19 in North Korea has added another layer of uncertainty on the Korean Peninsula. In this commentary, Philo Kim, Associate Professor at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies (IPUS) at Seoul National University, analyzes the domestic and external implications of North Korea’s recent surge in COVID-19 cases....

The following Research Review contains a summary of a chapter from the book North Korean Women, Leading Change. In this Research Review, Mi-ju Kim, lecturer at the Department of North Korean Studies and a research fellow at the Institute for Unification Studies of Ewha Womans University, looks into the human rights infringements North Kore...

According to the “White Paper on Human Rights in North Korea 2021,” human-trafficking targeted at North Korean defectors in China remains a grave issue – not only are North Korean women sold without their consent, but they are also forced to prostitution at entertainment establishments. In this commentary, Eunyoung Christina Choi, Senior Fell...

In June 2021, North Korea submitted a Voluntary National Review (VNR) and reported its progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. North Korea’s submission of the 2021 VNR report, the first to be submitted, shows its desire to participate as a member of the international community and allows for the provision of...

Global NK Zoom&Connect has met with leading South Korean researchers who study North Korea and listened to their voices to understand the current research on North Korea. For this issue, we met with Jung In Sung, the president of the Korea Hana Foundation (KHF), a public institute that has helped North Korean defectors settle down in our society. H...

The Global NK Special Report Series looks into key concepts regarding North Korea and inter-Korean relations. In this issue, Professor Hun Joon Kim discourse on human rights in Korea compared to discourse that has unfolded in international politics on the whole during the Cold War. Through such a comparison, the issue discusses how the concept of h...