Congress —Don’t Forget The North Korean People In Their Time Of Need

At a critical moment for the suffering North Korean people, Congress and the Biden administration are seemingly asleep at the wheel. The North Korean Human Rights Act (NKHRA), seminal legislation to support the North Korean people, lapsed in September this year. Given the lame duck Congress, the only hope for its passage is either in currently pending appropriations legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), or as stand-alone legislation when it will need to be reintroduced in the new Congress next year. The North Korean people cannot afford to wait for support to come as the situation in the country is incredibly dire.

During the pandemic, Kim Jong-un instituted an airtight seal along North Korea’s border, complete with shoot-to-kill orders for anyone found crossing into China. Informal cross-border trade serves as a critical lifeline for many North Koreans seeking food, information, and access to goods to trade in the informal markets. The border was so tightly monitored that the rate of escape from North Korea declined from an average of over 1,000 defectors per year to 229 in 2020, 63 in 2021, and so far in 2022, a mere 42, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification.

Fewer North Koreans are making it to freedom beyond the 38^th parallel, and for those left behind, there is little assistance to be had. According to a report by NKNews.org, all international aid workers left North Korea as of March 2021. Conditions inside the country were so grim that even international aid workers found it untenable to continue living and residing within the country.

This is to say nothing of the Kim regime’s longstanding policies of restricting every form of freedom innate to man, imprisoning 80,000 to 120,000 individuals in modern-day gulags, and subjecting North Koreans to forced labor. There can be no doubt about the severity of conditions the North Korean people face today.

It is against this backdrop that the legislation has lapsed. And, as of now, there are no known efforts to incorporate the NKHRA into either the Senate or the House versions of the NDAA which is under active debate now. The proposed 2022 NKHRA introduced by Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) would reauthorize the position of Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights, shore up sanctions tools to target individuals who forcibly repatriate North Korean refugees, provide funding for grants that promote information access in North Korea, and underscore continued U.S. commitments to resettle North Korean refugees.

Reauthorizing the NKHRA gains added urgency when seen against the backdrop of a relatively inactive Biden administration. Since taking office, the administration has only issued one tranche of sanctions targeting members of the Kim regime for their human rights violations. It has also failed to appoint a Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights. And now Congress – the actor most consistent in standing up for the North Korean people’s human rights – may drop the ball, too.

There is a need to breathe new life into U.S. efforts to safeguard and protect the human rights of the North Korean people. In addition to prioritizing these efforts in Congress, the Biden administration should consider issuing an atrocity determination saying whether the North Korean people face ongoing crimes against humanity, and maybe even genocide. This would build upon the United Nation’s 2014 determination that the regime was committing ongoing crimes against humanity against its people.

Determinations made by the U.S. have served as catalysts for action in other contexts, for example, the atrocity determination for Uyghurs under the Trump administration and the determination against ISIS under the Obama administration. If the NKHRA is not incorporated into the NDAA, lawmakers should consider adding a provision into reintroduced legislation that would mandate that the Biden administration issue such a determination.

Congress and the administration cannot neglect the long-suffering people of North Korea. The U.S. government can demonstrate that they haven’t forgotten them by prioritizing North Korea in their legislative agenda and through elevating their cause by rightly recognizing the severity of the human rights violations they face.