Abstract

This study analyzes North Korean human rights for North Koreans abroad using three approaches—the concepts of nationality, refugee, and migrant. The first approach is that North Koreans abroad be given South Korean citizenship under the Korean Constitution. Yet, no country except South Korea recognizes North Korean defectors as South Koreans and this approach has contributed little to the protection of North Koreans from repatriation to North Korea. The second approach is that North Korean defectors as a group be granted refugee status. Each government, however, can determine a North Korean defector’s refugee status according to its own assessment of the North Korean asylum-seeker. The third approach is that North Korean defectors be considered migrants. By viewing North Korean defectors as migrants, North Korean human rights issues may be reduced to universal human rights ones with which the government of an asylum country has to deal. These three approaches should not be mutually exclusive. They each represent an aspect of North Korean human rights and they should be compromised in order to enhance the human rights of North Korean defectors in practice.