[Opinion] Korean Human Rights Issues Standing Again on the International Judgment Stand

Lee Yong-jun, Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador for North Korean Nuclear Issues

Until around the time of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, more than 30 years ago, the U.S. Congress in Washington was a major headache for the South Korean government. It was a place where South Korea’s democratization and human rights issues were criticized and condemned daily. Every few months, South Korea’s democratization and human rights issues were brought up in hearings, and joint letters from members of both the House and Senate urging improvements in South Korean human rights were sent incessantly.

The “Park Dong-sun Incident,” a massive illegal lobbying scandal involving the South Korean government that shook Washington’s political circles over 40 years ago, also occurred in this context. When I was first assigned to the North American Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during that era, my task was to monitor the backgrounds and activities of so-called “anti-Korean” U.S. senators and representatives who were considered troublesome.

At that time, those particularly interested in South Korean human rights included progressive Democratic lawmakers such as Senator Edward Kennedy, Representative Tom Lantos, Representative Edward Feighan, and Representative Thomas Foglietta. They were public enemies of South Korea’s authoritarian regime. Whenever they raised issues about South Korea’s democratization and human rights, the South Korean government’s defense was based on the situation of confrontation between the two Koreas and the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs.

Since the inauguration of the Roh Tae-woo administration in 1987, South Korean human rights issues disappeared from the U.S. Congress, and South Korea became a country admired and respected for achieving both economic development and democratization. When Representative Tom Lantos, who had a particular interest in human rights issues including those in South Korea, passed away in 2008, the U.S. Congress established the “Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission” in his honor, which has since discussed major human rights issues worldwide.

However, it was precisely this Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission that, on April 15 of this year, criticized the South Korean National Assembly’s enactment of the “Law Prohibiting Leaflets to North Korea” and held a “Hearing on Human Rights in the Korean Peninsula,” bringing South Korean human rights issues back to congressional hearings after more than 30 years. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which spends a huge budget on lobbying in the U.S., surely tried every possible way to prevent the hearing but failed.

The U.S. Congress takes the position that the “Law Prohibiting Leaflets to North Korea,” which criminalizes and punishes the distribution of leaflets supplying information from the outside world to North Korean residents, restricts the freedom of expression of South Korean citizens, thereby violating civil and political rights, and simultaneously infringes on the human rights of North Korean residents by blocking the inflow of external information into North Korea. Earlier, the U.S. State Department also criticized the law as a significant restriction on freedom of expression in its country-specific human rights report released at the end of March.

The Moon Jae-in administration opposed the holding of the Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on the grounds of the confrontation between the two Koreas and the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, which was no different from the logic asserted by South Korea’s past military dictatorship regimes. The fact that South Korean human rights issues in the U.S. Congress reappeared under a government established by so-called democratization activists and human rights activists was truly an irony of history. Regardless of the reasons, it was a truly shameful matter and a serious regression in history.

The Moon Jae-in administration has delayed the implementation of the North Korean Human Rights Act for four years, forcibly repatriated two North Korean residents captured in the East Sea through Panmunjom last November, and continues to abstain from co-sponsoring the UN North Korean Human Rights Resolution. This consistent refusal to address North Korean human rights raises fundamental questions about whether South Korea truly shares values with the world’s civilized and advanced countries.

Despite all the government’s justifications, the Law Prohibiting Leaflets to North Korea cannot be free from suspicion that it is a “Law to Protect the North Korean Regime” aimed at helping maintain the North Korean system.