The Only Way Out: Negotiate With North Korea
An Interview with Leon Sigal on Recent Events
and U.S.-D.P.R.K. Relations

Interviewed by Paul Liem on June 8, 2009
Published June 16, 2009

Leon V. Sigal is the Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project of the Social Science Reseach Council in New York. Mr. Sigal is the author of "Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea," which was named the Book of Distinction in 1998 by the American Academy of Diplomacy. He was a member of the editorial board of The New York Times from 1989 to 1995 and served in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, in 1979 as an International Affairs Fellow and in 1980 as Special Assistant to the Director. For a full bio, click here.

[Paul Liem]: Mr. Sigal, several weeks have passed since North Korea conducted its second nuclear test since 2006 and declared that it would consider sanctions by the United Nations to be an act of war. What do you think are the issues being discussed at the Security Council and what do you think we can expect?

[Leon Sigal]: Well, I think there are a number of sanctions that the U.S., Japan and South Korea are seeking and a number of provisions to make lawful, acts that otherwise would not be. A security council resolution creates new international law.

I think the most important bone of contention is whether to legalize stopping ships at sea for the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and aircraft with respect to just North Korea, that is to say, deterring cargo to and from North Korea, that might be weapons-related. As you know, Resolution 1718 partially legitimated PSI but it said - it was a phrase stuck in, I suspect, by the Chinese - that said "consistent with international law", and since stopping ships at sea is not consistent with international law under most circumstances, that was a significant loophole. I think the Americans and Japanese and others are trying to close that loophole and I'm not sure the Chinese are going to go along with it. So I think that's the main bone of contention. After all, stopping ships at sea was the reason why the United States once went to war with Great Britain. more >

The Untold Story Behind Human Rights Violations
in North Korea

Christine Ahn and Thomas P. Kim | June 16, 2009

Lost in the flurry over North Korea's detention of U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee is the story they sought to cover: the plight of North Korean women refugees in China. Eighty percent of recent North Korean migrants in China are women. According to "Lives for Sale," a recent report by Lee Hae-Young based on interviews with 77 North Korean women living in China, most of these women fled North Korea in search of a better life, only to find themselves sold to Chinese farmers and laborers. Possessing few or no legal rights in China and faced with the prospect of prostitution, forced marriage, and sexual slavery there, the freedom of these Korean women is directly related to what is happening in North Korea, and what might happen should they be able to return home.

North Korean women in China are highly vulnerable to exploitation, yet what consistently fails to be covered is "why are they leaving their home country?" The Washington Post found that Lee's report, mentioned above, "is a part of a growing body of research conducted inside China that shows that North Korean defectors are mostly women from working-class and rural backgrounds who fled because of hunger and poverty, not political oppression." more >