This presentation will examine how portrayals of North Korea by the U.S. government and popular media diminished the possibility of diplomatic cooperation between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) over the second half of the twentieth century.  It will specifically argue that policymakers and journalists, among other observers in U.S. society, primarily made sense of the DPRK’s often-brutal actions by describing it as either a puppet of the Soviet Union... Read More

Ha Young-sun, chairman of the board of the East Asia Institute; Chun Chaesung, chair of EAI’s Asia Security Initiative Research Center; and Sohn Yul, dean and professor of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University; address inter-Korean tensions and South Korea’s security concerns in a panel discussion moderated by senior director Stephen Noerper. Security Challenges on the Korean Peninsula   Ha Young-sun            Chairman of... Read More

    June 3, 2016   Time for Intensified Dialogue on the Korean Peninsula Ambassador Thomas Hubbard   On May 6, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea kicked off the historic Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, marking the first such official gathering of the regime’s senior leadership since Supreme Leader Kim Il-sung convened the Sixth Congress in 1980. English June 3, 2016   Time for Intensified Dialogue on the Korean Peninsula Ambassador Thomas Hubbard   On May 6, the Democratic... Read More

Stephan Haggard, author of Hard Target: Engaging North Korea, provides an assessment of a North Korea that is undergoing substantial economic and social change under the Kim Jong Un regime, in conversation with Korea Society president Thomas Byrne. Engaging North Korea   Stephan Haggard          Author of Hard Target: Engaging North Korea Thomas Byrne           President of The Korea Society  ... Read More

      February 23, 2016   North Korea: The End of “Patience”? Ambassador Thomas Hubbard North Korea’s detonation of a nuclear device on January 6 followed by a satellite launch on February 7, while widely predicted, have led to a sharp rise in tensions on the Korean Peninsula and called into question the “strategic patience” that has characterized the US approach to North Korea under the Obama administration. Both steps violate existing UN Security Council resolutions and underscore North Korea’s avowed... Read More

The Korea Society marks two years since the release of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry Report (COI) with a message from South Korea's Ambassador on Human Rights Lee Jung-hoon and in-studio discussion with Greg Scarlatoiu. Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), Scarlatoiu speaks to current efforts within the UN, among governments and by NGOs to halt North Korea's human rights abuses, in conversation with the Society's Stephen Noerper. North Korean... Read More

      February 7, 2016   Intl Reaction to North Korea's Missile Launch Stephen E. Noerper A month and a day after conducting its fourth nuclear test, North Korea launched a multi-stage rocket carrying a 440-pound satellite. The launch of the Taepodong missile from the Tongchang-ri site, near the North’s border with China, on a clear winter Sunday morning on 7 February was another defiant and provocative action, closely following the North’s four nuclear weapons test. The United Nations Secretary General,... Read More

Sylvia Kim, a human rights lawyer and policy advisor with the European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, offers an overview of the international legal framework aimed at protecting stateless persons and explains the plight of the stateless children born to North Korean refugees in China.     Invisible Children:The Stateless Children of North Korean Refugees  Sylvia Kim     Policy Advisor, European Alliance for Human Rights  In Conversation With... Read More

Robert Boynton, Director at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, discusses his new book, The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project, a thoroughly researched investigative report of the systematic abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents. Invitation-only zones were guarded communities for Japanese abducted by North Korean spies from the late 1970s to early 80s.  Boynton’s book is a balance of the harrowing personal stories of Japanese... Read More

      January 6, 2016 North Korea Nuclear TestStephen E. Noerper On January 6, the DPRK tested what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb and a 5.1 seismic event was detected along the northeast coast, some thirty miles from the site of previous nuclear tests. Earlier, on December 10, Kim Jong Un bragged of North Korea having “a self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb,” and in his New Year address railed against “invasive outsiders and provocateurs” and promised a “holy war of justice” and new “diversified attack means.”... Read More