Page 36 - NKHR Hawaii Conference 2023

PANEL DISCUSSION

Even one official who was not particularly into human rights issues—he’s very into
security issues and the Indo-Pacif c strategy—even he acknowledged that the three places
in Asia that call for a human rights mass atrocity determination were China, Burma, and
North Korea. Even this of cial recognized that that was the case, so why should there
not be a mass atrocity determination for every type of mass atrocity crime, genocide
war crimes, and crimes against humanity put forward by the US government? This is
something that I think would be a worthwhile endeavor.

The second thing I want to talk about is sanctions. There are many sanctions against
North Korea. T e main issue is not the number of sanctions. More sanctions can be levied
against North Korea. But the primary gap is in the enforcement of the sanctions. T at’s
where there’s a huge gap. And that’s true of the UN Security Council sanctions. T at’s
true of US sanctions. That’s true of a range of sanctions that are there—there’s a gap
between the enforcement of those sanctions and the sanctions that already exist.

T e third thing that I want to say is that when I was in Korea one of the questions that
I got was, “Is it possible to prosecute Kim Jong Un when he’s a head of state? Doesn’t he
have immunity as a head of state?”

“Listen to me now and listen to me.”

T ere has never been immunity for mass atrocity crimes for a head of state or anyone
else. And that includes Kim Jong Un. And so through international justice mechanisms,
whether it’s President Milosevic of the former Yugoslavia or the President of Kosovo,
many examples could be given where being a head of state provides no immunity from
prosecution for mass atrocity crimes. Indeed, South Korea has prosecuted many past
South Korean presidents. And yet for far more serious crimes, these mass atrocity crimes,
there has not been prosecution domestically against Kim Jong Un and the top leadership
of North Korea.

DR. STEPHEN NOERPER
Let’s move now to a “boots on the ground” perspective from a former US Marine, Grant
Newsham. As an analyst par excellence, how do you see human rights situated in the
context of your def nition of security? You’ve spent a lot of time working on Japan and
China. How do we place North Korea’s human rights as a regional issue as well as an
issue for the United States and Korea?