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The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security.
King, Robert R., and Gi-Wook Shin, eds. (Stanford, CA: Asia/Pacific Research Center, 2021). ISBN-13: 978-1-9313-6865-0. Kindle Edition $9.99. 337 pp.
The Covid-19 Pandemic has only exacerbated the long-standing issues afflicting the insufficiencies in human rights protections around the world while furthering the degradation of human rights across areas of autonomy and accessibility. In the case of the long history of human rights violations and reluctance to meet the international standards upheld by the United Nations, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) must be viewed as an exceedingly critical case of concern, especially in recent times. From June 16 to 18, 2020, Stanford University's Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), in partnership with the Koret Foundation, organized its annual Koret Conference with a specific focus centered on North Korean human rights. In a volume of conference proceedings organized into parts based on three interrelated issues of the role of the United Nations, the role of information, and that of denuclearization, The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021) adds to the conversation on the role human rights in policy towards North Korea, while emphasizing the interconnectedness of human rights with political issues such as the addressment of issues of security and denuclearization. Espousing a desire to not "delegitimize" the regime but rather "help North Korea move towards becoming a positive and contributing participant in the international community" (p. 22), editors Robert R. King and Gi-Wook Shin strive to "reignite" the importance of a broad engagement with the DPRK on human rights issues, as they deem the stereotypical notions of such efforts as negatively impactful to denuclearization efforts and security issues as false (p. 42).
Both King and Shin author the book's introductory chapter, highlighting the collection's multiplicity of issues while synthesizing the organization and contents of the volume's four parts. The editors introduce and support the guiding rationale for the book's interconnected and interrelated focus on exploring "the role that human rights ought to play as a key element of any comprehensive policy for dealing with North Korea" by presenting the need to bring human rights and humanitarian concerns into the discussion on denuclearization and security issues (p. 22). Notably, the editors speak...