윤석열 정부의 대북 인권 정책에 대한 비판적 검토

Abstract

The South Korean government's human rights policy toward North Korea has experienced ups and downs depending on successive governments. Among them, the current Yoon Seok-yeol government appears to be taking the most hard-line policy. By officially publishing the North Korean Human Rights Report, it is taking the lead in publicizing North Korea's human rights atrocities internationally. By forming the ‘North Korea Human Rights Promotion Committee’, it is trying to promptly implement the North Korean Human Rights Act, and it is striving to resume public discussions at the UN Security Council on North Korean human rights issues. In addition, the Korean Constitutional Court ruled that the legal provision banning the distribution of anti-North Korea leaflets was unconstitutional. This paper broadly divides human rights policies toward North Korea into ‘condemnation model’ and ‘cooperation model’. It develops an alternative interpretation of the peaceful unification policy provisions based on the liberal democratic order of Article 4 of the Korean Constitution. Then, it critically reviews the current government's human rights policies toward North Korea. The 2023 North Korean Human Rights Report relied only on the testimonies of North Korean defectors, and distributing it internationally without additional verification was considered problematic in light of the principle of truth. The formation of the North Korean Human Rights Promotion Committee had no clear basis under the North Korean Human Rights Act. Furthermore, given that it was ultimately intended to provide financial support to hard-line human rights groups against North Korea, it was seen that there was a risk of entrenching biased human rights policies against North Korea. The author believed that the Constitutional Court's decision to ban the distribution of anti-North Korea leaflets as unconstitutional was a decision that overlooked the difference between freedom of expression at the internal level and the act of spreading slander to other communities beyond the border. This article instead presents a cooperation model that takes humanitarian principles as a higher-level perspective. Instead of a human rights advocacy model that seeks to establish the rights of victims and punish the offending authorities, a humanitarian model that prioritizes alleviating the suffering of victims and cooperation from the offending authorities was presented. From such a humanitarian perspective, a method was proposed for South and North human rights dialogue and and humanitarian cooperation based on the principle of reciprocity. In human rights cooperation, a method of institutional exchange and cooperation was proposed that affirms the differences in the human rights views of the North and South and seeks the lowest common denominator. It was emphasized that humanitarian cooperation between North and South Korea should be carried out continuously and systematically, regardless of political situation or military tensions. It was believed that humanitarian aid should be provided even during war, and that neutrality and non-partisanship should be maintained even in hostile confrontational relationships. The author believes that if this kind of humanitarian cooperation between two Koreas continues in the long term, it will be able to ensure the sincerity of human rights discussions between both Koreas, and further contribute substantially to improving the human rights situation in North Korea.