ABSTRACT

North Korea has one of the worst human rights records this planet has ever known. 1 Whether within the DPRK’s gulags—the DPRK’s political, concentration, and prison camps—or beyond the gulags’ borders, the DPRK has habitually violated international law and its own constitution through its use of extermination, torture, crimes of association, and political and religious persecution of its own nationals. 2 Additionally, due to the combination of its isolationist regime and the drought and floods that ravaged the territory in the 1990s, North Korea suffered a severe famine, the effects of which continue to extend. 3 Although sources have differing numbers, 4 the extent of deaths caused by food shortages, malnourishment, and resulting starvation within North Korea since the beginning of the 1990s has grown to over two million people. 5 The caste system of North Korea further exacerbates the situation, as it affords decreasing rations to those in the lower categories, while reserving extra rations for the military and elite classes within the regime. 6 These unending human rights atrocities, political and religious persecutions, and food shortages have led to an exodus of North Koreans leaving their homeland, searching for the minimum necessities of life and human rights that have been denied them for so long. 7