The Asan Institute for Policy Studies will host an Asan Seminar titled, “Policy Recommendations on North Korea’s Forced Labor in Foreign Countries” on Friday, November 21 in Washington, D.C. The findings of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea (UN COI) outline in horrendous detail the crimes against humanity being committed as a matter of state policy. To support the momentum behind the UN COI findings and recommendations, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies published a new report titled Beyond the UN COI Report on Human Rights in DPRK. The Asan report seeks to augment the UN COI findings by further examining the human rights abuses sustained by North Korean laborers but not included in the UN COI report. This report details human rights abuses suffered by North Koreans overseas workers and laborers in their nuclear facilities. The report focuses on these two victims groups because of their significant impact on the development of policies for improving North Korean human rights. Through independent analysis and interviews with North Korean defectors the report concludes that these groups are subjected to slavery and forced labor conditions that violate international law. Institutionalized by the state, these conditions are further symptomatic of how gross human rights violations are routinized at all levels of North Korean society. The authors and invited panelists will discuss the research findings and policy recommendations of this report in this public seminar.

Link to the report: http://en.asaninst.org/contents/asan-report-beyond-the-coi-dprk-human-rights-report/

Date / Time: Friday, November 21, 2014 / 3:00-4:30PM
Location: The Stimson Center (1111 19th St. NW 12th Floor)
RSVP: Please go to the registration page (click here) or email us at asaninstdc@asaninst.org.

Panelists

Chairperson
Roberta Cohen
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Presenters
Shin Chang-Hoon
Research Fellow and Director, Center for Global Governance, The Asan Institute for Policy Studies

Go Myong-Hyun
Research Fellow, Risk, Information & Social Policy Program, The Asan Institute for Policy Studies

Discussants
David Asher
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security

T. Kumar
International Advocacy Director, Amnesty International

Greg Scarlatoiu
Executive Director, The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK)

John Sifton
Asia Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch