HUMAN RIGHTS & NORTH KOREA

Human rights has emerged as a major focal point of US foreign policy toward North Korea. Conservative groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, Defense Forum Foundation, and Concerned Women of America (conservative counterpart to NOW) have joined several evangelical and conservative Christian Korean and Korean American groups in supporting the "North Korea
Human Rights Act" -- which was recently passed by the US House of Representatives and is about to be presented to the Senate. What do we make of the allegations of human rights violations in North Korea when the US continues to maintain its global hegemonic power through military aggression? Is it possible to discuss "human rights" across the ideological spectrum, and do human rights look different from the left -- in contrast to the right?

· John Feffer, Author of NORTH KOREA / SOUTH KOREA: U.S. POLICY AT A TIME
OF CRISIS (Seven Stories Press, 2003) and former international affairs
representative of the American Friends Service Committee
· David Hawk, Author of THE HIDDEN GULAG: EXPOSING NORTH KOREA’S PRISON
CAMPS (U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2003) and a former
executive director of Amnesty International/USA
· Hyun Ok Park, Professor of East Asian Studies, New York University and
author of TWO DREAMS IN ONE BED: CAPITAL, SOCIAL LIFE AND KOREANS IN
MANCHURIA (Duke University Press, forthcoming)
· Elaine Kim, Professor, UC Berkeley, moderator