NORTH KOREA DOES NOT EXIST: HUMAN RIGHTS IN ASYMMETRY

Abstract

The first three chapters of this dissertation critique the findings and recommendations of the February 2014 report of the United Nations Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea). They contend the report is grounded in hyperreal representational practices and functions as an instrument of securitization. It thereby reifies the asymmetrical state of war that is a root cause of DPRK human rights violations. These three chapters then function as a vehicle for the final two chapters that locate the primary origins of the Western understanding of North Korea within American/Western liberal ideology. North Korea’s ideological position makes appropriate the framing of DPRK human rights violations as extraordinary by contrast to other comparable countries. The Introduction asserts the relevance of the asymmetrical conflict between the DPRK and its adversaries and introduces the theories of Thierry Balzacq, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jean Baudrillard. Chapter One critiques the selectivity and methodology of the report, particularly the de-temporalization, de-localization and extrapolation of allegations as representative of the experiences of ordinary North Koreans. Chapter Two demonstrates the indeterminacy and hyperreal representational practices of the report’s findings of extraordinary crimes against humanity against hostile, starving and ‘abducted’ populations. Chapter Three challenges the lack of DPRK objectivity in the report’s presentation of historical and geopolitical context, particularly the neglect of the consequences of the asymmetrical state of war. Chapter Four introduces the philosophy of Slavoj Žižek and asserts its relevance to identifying North Korea as an abjected, gendered and racialized fantasy-space of American/Western liberalism (objet petit a). Chapter Five considers the consequences of ideology for empirical critique and DPRK agency, advocating unconditional normalization and investment as the most ethical American DPRK policy.