Recommendations and Strategies
Table of contents
Aurora Foundation
By Jack Rendler, Executive Director
The 2nd international conference on North Korea Human Rights & Refugees (08.12.2000)/HRWF International Secretariat(19.07.2001)-Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net
The open countries of the world, especially Japan, the United States, and South Korea, should seize this opening to extend their ties with the DPRK. Such contact, over the long term, offers the best chance of bringing change to the government and to the people of North Korea. At the same time, there must be a greater sense of urgency for improving the human rights of the people of North Korea.
The basic message of any negotiations should be: We can do business with you, but it will be a good deal easier if you would undertake the reforms necessary to assure respect for human rights. In negotiating with the DPRK on human rights issues, maintain the forward position: economic favor should follow political reform; the rights of the North Korean people should not be held hostage to an endless series of economic demands.
Offers of international humanitarian aid should be made, but should be contingent upon independent monitoring of its distribution. Such aid should be given in-kind rather than in currency.
The UN should take primary responsibility for long-term monitoring of the human rights situation in North Korea, and in areas of China adjacent to the North Korean border. Priority should be given to arranging a meaningful fact-finding mission by an independent, international human rights organization.
The Secretary General of the United Nations should make it clear that since the DPRK has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adherence to its principles is not a casual consideration.
The World Trade Organization and other international trade and labor groups should make it clear that forced labor of any kind is unacceptable. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should make future loans contingent upon measurable improvement in the protection of human rights.
At a minimum, the government of North Korea should:
- make a meaningful commitment to implementing the rights and procedures guaranteed in the North Korean Penal Code;
- amend Article 47 of the Criminal Code to bring it into conformity with international standards;
- ensure that no form of torture occurs anywhere;
- provide the information about individuals, groups and prisons requested by human rights groups;
- discontinue the harassment, imprisonment and ostracism of North Korean refugees abroad, and returned refugees at home.
The PRC is the key on the status of refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees should press the PRC to fulfill its obligations under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, accord displaced North Koreans in China refugee status, and press the PRC to protect and provide for North Korean refugees in China. The government of the People's Republic of China should alter its policy of forced repatriation of North Korean refugees, and adopt guidelines consistent with the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Chinese government should provide special protection and support to North Korean refugee women and children, and act to prevent the sexual slave trade on the border.
Russian authorities should bring an immediate end to North Korean PSS operations in Russian territory. No North Korean workers who are at risk in the DPRK should be forcibly returned by Russia. Russian authorities should take responsibility for preventing ill-treatment of North Koreans at all work sites.
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Recommendations and strategies
By Carl Gershman, President
The 2nd international conference on North Korea Human Rights & Refugees (08.12.2000)/ HRWF International Secretariat(19.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The challenge before us today is to place human rights on the agenda of the new diplomacy, and to shape a detailed plan that will take advantage of the new opening to reach out to the people of North Korea with a message of hope and solidarity. Inevitably, this will involve many different kinds of initiatives:
* Breaking the information blockade so that the true picture of conditions in North Korea can be revealed to the world;
* Pressuring North Korea to allow independent organizations such as Medecins Sans Fronti쨦res to provide famine relief directly to the people most in need;
* Pressuring the Pyongyang regime to recognize the right of North Koreans to leave their country freely, and also pressuring China and Russia to recognize the escapees as political refugees who must not be forcibly repatriated;
*Finding new ways to provide information to the people of North Korea, thus ending their enforced isolation;
*Developing multiple channels of exchange and contact with the North Korean people; and
*Demanding that economic assistance to North Korea be conditioned on meaningful improvements in addressing the three critical problems of human rights, famine relief, and refugee protection.
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