Book Launch: The North Korean Conundrum

While North Korea’s nuclear weapons and the security threat it poses have occupied the center stage and eclipsed other issues in recent years, human rights remain important to U.S. policy. The edited volume, The North Korean Conundrum, explores how dealing with the issue of human rights is shaped and affected by the political issues with which it is so entwined.

In this book launch event, contributors of the book will discuss the relationship between human rights and denuclearization, and how North Koreans’ limited access to information is part of the problem, and how this is changing.

Victor Cha, Senior Vice President and Korea Chair, CSIS; Vice Dean for Faculty and Graduate Affairs & D.S. Song-KF Professor of Government, Georgetown University

Robert King, Senior Advisor (non-resident), CSIS Korea Chair; former special envoy for North Korean human rights issues (2009 - 2017)

Nat Kretchun, Vice President, Open Technology Fund

Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, Stanford University

 

Gi-Wook Shin is director of Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea; professor of sociology and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research concentrates on social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations, with focus on Korea and broader Asia.

Robert R. King was the 2019–20 Koret Fellow for the fall quarter at Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. From 2009 to 2017 King served as the special envoy for North Korean human rights issues at the Department of State, an ambassadorial-ranked position. He is a senior advisor to the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a senior fellow at the Korea Economic Institute, and a board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in Washington, D.C.

Nat Kretchun is Vice President for Programs at the Open Technology Fund (OTF), a Congressionally funded non-profit organization that supports the development and deployment of anti-censorship, privacy, and security technologies for populations living under repressive information censorship regimes.

This event is co-hosted with the Korea Program at Stanford's Asia-Pacific Research Center. The event is made possible by generous support to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.