Humanitarian Protection Advocacy in East Asia: Charting a Path Forward

In this article, I make the following three-part argument. Firstly, I claim that despite the fact that a far greater number of asylum-seekers in Japan, Korea, and Mainland China receive humanitarian protection status than receive refugee status, legal advocacy regarding asylum in East Asia disproportionately focuses on refugee law and policy. Secondly, I argue that by neglecting a potentially productive advocacy framework, this disproportionate focus on refugee law has deleterious consequences for the development of robust and humane asylum systems in the region and for the provision of asylum protection to the greatest number of individuals. Thirdly, I assert that international law provides tools for effective humanitarian protection-based advocacy, and outline four avenues for legal advocacy that I believe can lay the groundwork for progressive reforms of humanitarian protection law and policy in East Asia

National Human Rights Institutions and the Courts in the Asia-Pacific Region

In many countries across the Asia-Pacific region, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) have in recent years joined the courts as principal institutional loci for the implementation of international human rights norms at the domestic level. This article investigates how the two institutions interact in the Asia-Pacific, and concludes that NHRIs exhibit several distinct types of interactions with the courts, namely collaboration; judicial training; participation in litigation; NHRJ advocacy of better human rights practices and rulings by the courts; NHRI defence of judicial independence; and interactions related to NHRI adjudication of human rights petitions. This article argues that given the wide range of different interactions displayed, relatively simplistic characterisations of the optimal relationship between NHRs and the courts as ‘cooperative’ or ‘supportive’ are misguided, and that different types of interactions would benefit from different types of institutional relationships

Protecting Victim Rights: The Role of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea

Since its establishment in the year 2001, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has assumed the role of primary governmental entity addressing human rights issues in the country. In addition to investigating complaints of human rights violations and discrimination, the NHRCK has a policy advisory function, and engages in research, education, and publicizing of human rights issues. This article examines the role of the NHRCK, which came into being in part due to the advocacy of victim rights groups, in promoting and protecting victim rights. It addresses both the rights of crime victims and the rights of victims of human rights abuses. The article analyzes the different ways in which the NHRCK has addressed victim issues, while offering concluding observations as to how the NHRCK can more effectively promote and protect victim rights in the future

North Korean Escapees’ Right to Enter South Korea: An International Law Perspective

This essay poses the question of whether North Korean escapees have a right to enter and reside in South Korea under international law. The answer to this question may seem obvious to those unfamiliar with inter-Korean relations. Of course, all countries have the right to determine whether foreigners may gain entry to their countries; that is a fundamental attribute of sovereignty. In the context of the Korean peninsula, however, the answer is not so simple. Under South Korean law, individuals born in North Korea are normally considered South Korean nationals, and under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and (arguably) customary international law, countries have a general duty to allow entry and residence to their own nationals. The interesting question, then, is whether this general duty extends also to the specific circumstances of the Korean peninsula, when most North Koreans have relatively little connection to South Korea, despite their formal South Korean citizenship. After considering different aspects of the issue, this essay will conclude that South Korea does have a duty to accept North Korean escapees under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, this duty is solely treaty-based, and customary international law does not currently impose any analogous requirements

Sub-National Human Rights Institutions and Transgovernmental Networks

Transgovernmental networks have played a prominent role in the evolution and development of national human rights institutions (‘NHRIs’) by promoting cooperation, best practices, and engagement at the international level, and providing NHRIs with legitimacy through the accreditation process. The role that transgovernmental networks play in the development of sub-national human rights institutions (‘SNHRIs’), however, has yet to be examined. This article attempts to fill this gap by comparing networking patterns of national and sub-national human rights institutions. This article concludes that while SNHRIs are able to derive certain benefits from their membership in ombudsman associations, they are currently missing out on many of the other benefits that NHRIs derive from their membership in the International Coordinating Committee for National Institutions for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (‘ICC’) and its affiliated networks. This article therefore proposes that the ICC establish a separate membership category for SNHRIs, with membership conditioned on compliance with a set of principles based on the Paris Principles, but revised so as to be applicable to sub-national bodies

Human Rights between the Local and Global: A Case Study of the Seoul Human Rights Ombudsperson

Over the last two decades, municipal human rights institutions have proliferated around the world. One of the newest examples of such initiatives is the Seoul Human Rights Ombudsperson Office, which was established in January 2013 as one of the core institutions of human rights protection in Seoul, Korea. This article will present a case study of the operations of the Seoul Human Rights Ombudsperson Office based on interviews and documentary research. It will focus on the question of how this newly established institution fits into the existing human rights regime, and in particular address three distinct issues, namely the degree to which the Seoul Human Rights Ombudsperson Office reflects local versus national or international influences, the types of institutional relationships it has with other human rights actors, and the degree to which it implements local versus national or international human rights norms