Human Rights

Neglected Voices: The Forgotten Psychological Effects of Korean War Bombings

By | February 19, 2021

Every war is complicated, but the Korean War, an international conflict, was more complicated than most. Here, Imogen Bird explores the difficulty of excavating civilian voices from the carnage.

Minority Affairs in the Xi Jinping Era: Hardened Cadre on the Periphery

By | March 18, 2019

What does the increasingly harsh tone of Chinese Communist Party’s policy toward ethnic minorities mean for Koreans in the northeast? Adam Cathcart looks at officials and the new Xi environment.

Memos from Pyongyang: A North Korean Perspective on the Otto Warmbier Case

By | July 10, 2017

Adam Cathcart does some further thinking around the death of Otto Warmbier, but with an underutilized angle; seeking clarity not on what Warmbier’s passing means for us, but on what it means in Pyongyang.

Revolution and Revival: Ideology and Faith in North Korea

By | June 23, 2017

Today, the North Korean state has all forms of spirituality under its iron fist. But today is but a 70-year blip on the radar of history. As Christopher Richardson writes in this reprisal of a speech delivered in Sydney on June 18, Christianity won’t yield so readily.

History, Smoke and Mirrors: Assessing North Korea’s Association for the Study of Human Rights

By | October 07, 2015

Can anything be learned from crawling through North Korea’s own report on its human rights situation and outlook? Adam Cathcart goes spelunking to find out.

Voices from the Black Box: 1987, the Social Democratic Party, and Protection of Human Rights

By | September 14, 2015

The DPRK human rights discourse is dominated by the many victims of Kimist state power. Whether for better or worse, this certainly leaves limited space for other perspectives to be aired. Here, Martin Weiser outlines evidence of a domestic debate surrounding human rights protection dating back to the late 1980s.