북한의 외교적 친소(親疏)와 인권개선 권고의 관계 분석: 유엔 보편적정례검토를 중심으로

Abstract

Different from the past when North Korea refused to have its human rights issues discussed internationally, North Korea has been relatively active in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which reviews the human rights situation of all UN member states. In three UPRs targeting North Korea, a total of 702 recommendations from 109 countries have been received, 337 recommendations of which have been accepted by North Korea. As North Korea actively participates in UPR, a variety of data has emerged that can help one understand North Korea’s thoughts on human rights issues and/or analyze patterns of its behavior. Based on this data, this study analyzes the relationship between the diplomatic closeness of North Korea and the countries that made recommendations for North Korea to improve its human rights, and the rate of acceptance of those recommendations. Diplomatic closeness was calculated as the sum of four factors -- (1) the vote on the UN General Assembly Resolutions about North Korea’s human rights situation, (2) the situation of establishing diplomatic ties with North Korea, (3) whether or not an embassy was established, and (4) the number of visits by government delegations -- while the acceptance rate was calculated as the ratio of the recommendations finally accepted by North Korea from the total number of recommendations made by a specific country. The results show that the higher the diplomatic closeness, the greater the acceptance rate of human rights recommendations. This suggests that one’s level of relations with North Korea should be raised in order to get Pyongyang to accept criticism of its human rights.