North Korea Remains the Land of Bad Options: What to Do about Human Rights?

Tomas Ojea Quintana, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, recently filed his last report on human rights in North Korea. Unsurprisingly, his conclusions were harsh.Pyongyang responded that Quintana’s “reckless remarks” were “not a mere nonsense of an individual with a topsy‐​turvy insight but a scheme worked out at the urging of the United States.” The [North] Korea Association for Human Rights Studies, through its unnamed spokesman, opined that “the ‘special rapporteur,’ not being content with distorting our reality, has pointed a finger at our ‘people’s livelihood’ and viciously picked on the most realistic and appropriate anti‐​epidemic measures taken by our state for our own specific need in order to cope with the global epidemic.”Quintana highlighted the impact of North Korea’s unique form of national quarantine—no other nation has issued shoot‐​to‐​kill orders for its border police. He issued a detailed report and spoke to the General Assembly’s Third Committee last month.“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has never been more isolated from the international community than at this point in time,” Quintana said. “This is having a dramatic impact on the human rights of the people inside of the country, and dampens hopes of achieving sustainable peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. I today urge the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the international community and its individual members to reverse this trajectory by reviving the spirit of multilateral cooperation that enabled the foundation of the United Nations in the first place.”