The enforcement problem in Resolution 2094 and the United Nations Security Council sanctions regime: sanctioning North Korea

This article deconstructs United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2094 through the preambulatory statements, objectives, obligations, and implementation and enforcement provisions of UNSC Resolution 2094. The article proceeds in three parts. First, it reviews the academic literature on UNSC sanctions and their application in the North Korean case. Second, it deconstructs UNSC Resolution 2094 according to the common structural components of international legal instruments to assess the level of congruence between the objectives of UNSC Resolution 2094, its enforcement mechanisms and outcomes. Third, it explores the weaknesses of UNSC Resolution 2094, focusing on the gap between the objectives and enforcement mechanisms found in the resolution. The inability of the UNSC sanctions regime to prevent North Korea reaching the cusp of becoming a nuclear weapons power is evidence of the international community's weak leverage over Pyongyang, a situation arising from the vulnerability of South Korea to a North Korean attack and the cross-cutting strategic priorities of China; the absence of economic linkages between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the primary sanctions-sender state in the USA; and North Korea's commitment to a nuclear weapons capability as the foundation of its medium-term economic development strategy, its institutional governance structure and associated ideological commitments.     

Washington's failure to resolve the North Korean nuclear conundrum: examining two decades of US policy

More than two decades of nuclear dialogue between the United States and North Korea have not prevented Pyongyang from conducting four nuclear tests and building up a nuclear weapons arsenal. Putting the blame for the failure of this dialogue solely on Pyongyang ignores the hesitancy and confusion of US policy. Historical evidence suggests that the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations consistently failed to prioritize their objectives and adopted an impatient and uncompromising negotiating strategy that contributed to this ongoing non‐proliferation fiasco. Identifying US policy mistakes at important crossroads in the dialogue with Pyongyang could help to prevent similar mistakes in the future. In this regard, the following analysis suggests a new approach towards Pyongyang based on a long‐term trust‐building process during which North Korea would be required to cap and then gradually eliminate its nuclear weapons in return for economic assistance and normalization of relations with the United States. Importantly, the United States might have to resign itself to North Korea's keeping an independent nuclear fuel cycle under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as to accepting South Korea's request to independently enrich uranium and pyroprocess spent nuclear fuel. This would be a more favourable alternative to allowing North Korea to continue accumulating nuclear weapons. Moreover, if the United States continues on the Obama administration's failed policy path, then there is a better than even chance that the Korean Peninsula may slide into a nuclear arms race.     

Domestic events,ideological changes and the post-cold war US–South Korea alliance

How can we account for the weakening of the US–South Korea alliance after the cold war? After the cold war, the US–South Korea alliance was expected to remain strong due to North Korea's threats of weapons of mass destruction. For the past decade and a half, this realist projection has not fully come to pass: rather, it has changed inversely. How can we account for this puzzle? In explaining this counter-intuitive development, the author employs the critical juncture approach. The author argues that in South Korea, certain domestic critical events readjusted domestic ideologies that affected its alliance policy towards the USA. With the initiation of Nordpolitik after the end of the cold war (the first critical juncture), conservative anti-communism and progressive nationalism became coexistent in South Korea, thus causing frictional policy towards the USA. The 2000 North–South Korean Summit (the second critical juncture) made the progressive nationalistic move more dominant in Korea, and this ideological change made its alliance policy towards the USA less friendly.     

A Rogue is a Rogue is a Rogue: US Foreign Policy and the Korean Nuclear Crisis

Two nuclear crises recently haunted the Korean peninsula, one in 1993/4, the other in 2002/3. In each case the events were strikingly similar: North Korea made public its ambition to acquire nuclear weapons and withdrew from the Nonproliferation Treaty. Then the situation rapidly deteriorated until the peninsular was literally on the verge of war. The dangers of North Korea's actions, often interpreted as nuclear brinkmanship, are evident and much discussed, but not so the underlying patterns that have shaped the conflict in the first place. This article sheds light on some of them. It examines the role of the United States in the crisis, arguing that Washington's inability to see North Korea as anything but a threatening 'rogue state' seriously hinders both an adequate understanding and possible resolution of the conflict. Particularly significant is the current policy of pre-emptive strikes against rogue states, for it reinforces half a century of American nuclear threats towards North Korea. The problematic role of these threats has been largely obscured, not least because the highly technical discourse of security analysis has managed to present the strategic situation on the peninsula in a manner that attributes responsibility for the crisis solely to North Korea's actions, even if the situation is in reality far more complex and interactive.     

Nuclear Sisyphus: the myth of denuclearising North Korea

Is North Korea ready and willing to give up its nuclear weapons? Proponents of arms control and sustained engagement with North Korea maintain that Pyongyang's desire to acquire nuclear weapons stemmed from ingrained insecurity vis-à-vis the United States or more specifically, the threat that the US poses to fundamental regime security.

However, the primordial source of Kim Jong Il's existential insecurity stems largely from the abnormal, structural idiosyncracies of his regime and not, as many naively believe, the hardline policies of the Bush administration. Accordingly, the Kim Jong Il regime's fundamental dilemma boils down to the fact that the domestic political costs of giving up its nuclear capabilities are just as high as the costs of retaining them.

Debunking the myth that the US, rather than North Korea, poses the greater challenge to South Korean security is as important as ensuring that North Korea dismantles its nuclear arsenal.     

The political economy of economic reform in North Korea

For over 10 years, North Korea has undergone a severe economic crisis, including food shortages, which has inflicted great suffering upon the North Korean people. Given such dire realities, it is beyond all doubt that the North Korean government should actively carry out comprehensive economic reforms as quickly as possible which aim to transform North Korea's present inefficient socialist planned economic system into a market economic system. Many argue that such reforms would give rise to successful economic growth in North Korea, which could enhance the legitimacy of the North Korean regime. Yet, the North Korean regime has consistently avoided implementing economic reforms, even though it has had a number of opportunities to do so. The July 1st reforms, which were introduced in 2002, have been half-hearted and inconsistently applied. This then raises an important question: Why has the North Korean government avoided adopting comprehensive economic reforms? In other words, what is the crucial barrier that has hindered North Korea's implementation of economic reforms? This article pinpoints North Korea's unique political system—i.e. its monolithic system of political control and policy making which exhibits the highest level of power concentration in one individual among all political systems—as the biggest barrier to economic reforms. No doubt North Korea desperately needs comprehensive economic reforms, in light of its economic crisis and food shortages. Nonetheless, the current North Korean regime has avoided adopting such reforms since they will undermine North Korea's monolithic system. In conclusion, North Korea's monolithic system has been the biggest obstacle to North Korea's economic reforms.     

China’s Evolving Policy towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea under Xi Jinping

Despite international pressure to condemn North Korea (DPRK), China’s successive leaderships have dealt carefully with Pyongyang, especially vis-à-vis its nuclear weapons program. This moderate stance reflects the two countries’ decades-long relationship, summarised in the Chinese idiom that Pyongyang and Beijing are “as close as lips and teeth”. Nevertheless, the DPRK’s third nuclear test in February 2013 raised enormous challenges for the new Xi Jinping leadership to maintain the previous DPRK policy focused on the status quo and stability on the Korean Peninsula. China’s attitudes and policies towards the DPRK after the provocative third test signified a possible reorientation of Beijing’s DPRK policy. This generated repercussions in the countries concerned and prompted debates among experts. This article asks how these events should be understood and what their implications are for the Xi leadership’s policy on the DPRK, the stability of the Korean Peninsula, and Northeast Asia. Given China’s competitive relations with other major powers, we conclude that the Xi leadership will not abandon the DPRK; indeed it will reinforce the policy of strengthening China’s influence over it. Nonetheless one aspect of doing so will involve China opening up to other – cooperative, multilateral – approaches to reinforcing stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia.     

‘Red on White’: Kim Il Sung,Park Chung Hee,and the Failure of Korea’s Reunification, 1971–1973

The articles argues that in 1971–1973 North Korea’s leader Kim Il Sung used the Sino-American rapprochement and the Soviet-American détente to pursue Korean reunification on his terms; his aim was to ‘democratize’ and then ‘revolutionize’ South Korea and so achieve through dialogue what he failed to achieve through militancy. Kim’s game was based on a misreading of the political dynamics in South Korea and on misplaced confidence in North Korea’s attractiveness. He also misjudged his ability to obtain China’s and the USSR’s backing for his schemes.     

Burma and North Korea: conventional allies or nuclear partners?

During the third quarter of 2009, there was a spate of reports in the news media and on the Internet accusing Burma and North Korea of engaging in a range of activities that potentially threatened regional security. It was claimed that the Naypyidaw regime had developed a close relationship with Pyongyang that included North Korea's sale to Burma of conventional weapons, assistance in the development of Burma's defence infrastructure and arms industries, and even collaboration on a nuclear weapons program. Given the lack of hard evidence, however, these reports raised more questions than they answered. Burma's nuclear status remains unknown. Another puzzle is why no government or international organisation has yet made an official statement on this particular issue, despite all the publicity it has attracted. Should it be determined that Burma does indeed have a secret nuclear weapons program, then a key question would be whether the generals are likely to be any more receptive to international concerns than they have been in the past, on other issues.     

A nuclear North Korea and the stability of East Asia: a tsunami on the horizon?

This article aims to assess the strategic implications of North Korea's nuclear development. It calls into question the conventional wisdom that Pyongyang's atomic weapons will not only undermine the state of deterrence on the Korean peninsula, but also will trigger a nuclear domino effect throughout East Asia. A nuclear-armed North Korea, I argue, still cannot win a major victory over the South and the United States; Pyongyang's bombs somewhat decrease—rather than increase, as many believe—the risk of US preventive attack. And the regional US military presence as well as the available missile defence technology is sufficient to persuade Seoul and Tokyo not to pursue nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future. While I reject the alarmist view, I find that North Korea's armament nevertheless carries two significant—albeit less grave—risks that have received little scholarly scrutiny. First, I argue that the risk of inadvertent war through pre-emption will increase with Pyongyang's armament. I also argue that the strengthening of US alliances in the region as well as the US development of a missile defence capability in response to the North Korean threat could exacerbate the security dilemmas among major powers. I conclude, however, that these potential dangers do not markedly threaten regional stability.     

Nuclear Order and Disorder

After a decade of great progress in diminishing the risks posed by nuclear weapons, international nuclear relations came unstuck in the late 1990s. Why did this happen? This question is best answered through an understanding of how a ‘nuclear order’ was constructed during the Cold War, how it developed in the early post‐Cold War period, and how confidence in it dissipated as the 1990s wore on. After considering how the nuclear order was founded upon linked systems of deterrence and abstinence, the article explains how both were destabilized in the mid‐ to late 1990s—cause and effect of the United States shifting its ordering strategy towards protection (through missile defences) and enforcement. Can confidence in nuclear order be restored? How should we regard the recent agreement among States Parties to the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Agreement to press for complete nuclear disarmament?     

Cosmopolitanism nationalism and the heritage of shame: comfort women memorials and the legacy of slavery in the United States

During World War II the Japanese military used approximately 200,000 women, mainly Koreans, as bonded workers they euphemistically labeled, ‘comfort women’. Since 2010, six memorial sites dedicated to the suffering of these women have been built in the United States. Campaigns for these memorials have been led by Korean-Americans, reflecting the importance this issue has in South Korea and within the Korean Diaspora. While a growing body of research has examined the political, social, and gender ramifications of the ‘Comfort Women’ issue in South Korea and on Korean-Japanese relations, less attention has been given to the transnational aspects of this memorializing campaign. What is the purpose of these memorials in the United States? How might visitors to such sites remember and memorialize trauma they know little about and which occurred far away? And how do these memorial sites dedicated to such distant trauma contrast with the absence of memorials for events much closer at hand, such as the historical realities of slavery? I examine these questions through an analysis of a ‘Comfort Women’s Memorial Peace Garden’ dedicated at the Fairfax County (Virginia) Government Center in May, 2014.     

South Korea’s North Korean Image Problem: Human Rights under the Spotlight

ABSTRACT

The 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (UN COI) had a decisive impact on South Korea’s approach to North Korea’s human rights abuses in the several years following its release. This article interprets moves within South Korea to support the UN COI’s recommendations as taken in the interests of ontological security, or a stable sense of identity, which has also driven the state’s broader initiatives on image management and nation branding. It extends the boundaries of nation-branding research by considering why and how a state may adopt policies that enhance its moral visibility and reputation in world affairs. It considers how a positive reputation is enhanced by demonstrating good international citizenship, promoting the visibility of state identity parameters beyond its culture and core industries. This article interprets the South Korean government’s efforts to act on North Korean human rights following the UN COI, as well as the significance of being seen to be doing so at home and abroad as security-giving behaviour asserting its moral authority in relation to North Korea. It explores how a longstanding policy of relative silence on North Korea’s human rights record acceded to identity-driven pressures arising from the UN COI and influencing South Korea’s international image-management strategy between 2014 and 2017.     

Co-evolution of networks and discourses: a case from North Korean defector-activists

This article uses an eclectic approach of network and discourse analyses to examine symbiotic relations between the formation of professional networks and the constitution of normative discourses in international affairs. Based on more than 2000 English and Korean mixed materials about the five most-mentioned North Korean defector-activists in the media in 1998–2015, and assisted by a computer-based content analysis tool, the author demonstrates how each of those five defector-activists has employed their endogenous identities to join the system of international human rights activism and offered legitimate narratives for the campaigns against North Korea, while forming transnational networks in South Korea, the USA and the UK. She argues that individuals’ endogenous identities and agency are critical for shaping normative discourses in international human rights activism against North Korea in the first instance, which then grow exponentially through transnational networks formed by individuals.     

‘Like two pieces of the sky’: Seeing North Korea through accounts of the famine (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

North Korea is renowned for its inaccessibility, with anthropologists and others compelled to work beyond its borders. Presented in this article are select findings from ethnographic research carried out in 2006 among refugee survivors of the North Korean famine living in South Korea. The ethnographic material shows how refugees’ accounts of their plight are shaped by the political conditions of North Korea.     

North Korea's diplomacy to engage the United States

For the past two decades relations between North Korea and the United States have become increasingly hostile. Pervasive and vociferous criticism of North Korea's dangerous and seemingly irrational behaviour has focused on Pyongyang's use of nuclear brinkmanship, violations of human rights and general disregard for the well-being of the North Korean people, as exemplified by its decision to develop a nuclear programme while the country suffered from widespread famine. However, an alternate view put forth by both American and South Korean experts on North Korea holds that Pyongyang's use of the nuclear wager primarily has been intended to demand Washington's attention in order to initiate bilateral talks and eventually normalise relations with the US. Certainly, Pyongyang's actions have been ham-fisted at times; however, its commitment to the goal of normalisation has been unwavering. The current controversy regarding North Korea's nuclear programme may serve as a necessary step to build trust between Washington and Pyongyang and might continue for sometime, given the short history of direct engagement. However, one thing is clear: neither Washington nor Pyongyang can afford to go back to the starting point.     

The China factor in the US–South Korea alliance: the perceived usefulness of China in the Korean Peninsula

Over the past 10 years, South Korea has chosen inconsistent strategies with respect to the US–South Korea alliance. On the one hand, Seoul disagreed with Washington about the extended role of United States Forces Korea and the deployment of US missile defence systems in East Asia. On the other hand, these problems ironically coincided with South Korea's strong support for the USA in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. What explains the inconsistency of South Korea's alliance policies? Major schools of thought in international relations have offered explanations, but their analyses are deficient and indeterminate. This article looks at the South Korea–China–North Korea triangle as a new approach to explaining the puzzling behaviour of South Korea. The model shows that South Korea's alliance policies are driven by two causal variables. First, North Korea is an impelling force for South Korea to remain as a strong US alliance partner. This encourages Seoul to maintain cooperation with Washington in wide-ranging alliance tasks. Second, South Korea's policies are likely to reflect the way the nation perceives how useful China is in taming North Korea. The perceived usefulness of China causes Seoul to accommodate China and decrease cooperation with the USA. This might strain the relationship with the USA should South Korea evade alliance missions that might run contrary to China's security interests.     

North Korea’s Response to US Army Propaganda Leaflets during the Korean War

This study examines a particular aspect of the history of North and South Korea’s bbira (propaganda leaflets), focusing on North Korea’s propaganda strategies in response to US propaganda during the Korean War, including perceptions of propaganda leaflets targeting North Koreans and counterstrategies used against them. The research herein analyses Munhakyesul, the leaflets during the Korean War, and the leaflets held by the DMZ Museum. The findings of this study reveal characteristics of and differences between the psychological tactics used by North Korea and the US during the Korean War, as exhibited through the use of these propaganda leaflets.     

Cultural policies for national music in South and North Korea (1960s–70s): a comparative study

ABSTRACT

This article is a comparative study of the cultural policies of North Korea (DPRK) and South Korea (ROK) in the 1960s and 1970s, specifically concerning the disciple of music. In this period, both South and North Korean regimes demonstrated similar conceptualisations of ‘national music’, harmonising Korean traditional music with western musical styles, but the end result differed in the two regimes. The DPRK developed national music through a homogenised musical style by assimilating Korean folk music with a western musical style while excluding traditional court music, with drastic modifications to traditional instruments and musical forms. In contrast, the ROK’s policy on establishing national music resulted in a combination of traditional court music for the ruling class and western classical music, indicating elitism. Particularly, this article argues that these distinct features of their national music were the result of differences in the strength and interest of government officials between the regimes.     

Devolution,equity and the English question*

ABSTRACT. Following devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, does England need a stronger political voice and/or constitutional changes to safeguard its identity and interests? (the ‘English question’). Polling and other evidence suggests that it does, albeit more to redress inequities associated with voting in parliament (the ‘West Lothian question’) and the distribution of public spending (the ‘Barnett formula’) than to safeguard its identity. Although campaigners for English devolution have had little impact, and alternative institutional responses to the English question are all problematic, it would be imprudent of the major parties to do nothing. The least difficult course would be adoption of English votes on English matters and reform or replacement of the Barnett formula.