Muhammad Muzahidul Islam :
Members of the international community have so many duties and obligations. These duties and obligations come from the relevant international instruments including, for example, the UN Charter, relevant international human rights instruments, international agreements and international other norms and standards etc.
They are to bring compliant legislative, judicial and administrative measures domestically. Some members, however, are seen not to be very honest and sincere in the observance of those duties and obligations; and upon a careful selection, we can pick N Korea as the one.
Considering its records of human rights abuses, missile activities and recent trash balloon launches, one can raise a question – should it be treated as a responsible member of the international community?
Let me share with you the recent state-coordinated trash balloon launches that were conducted by N Korea. According to NK NEWS (UN Command says North Korean trash balloons breach armistice, international law, by Chad O’Carroll, May 30, 2024) “The United Nations Command (UNC) has condemned North Korea’s balloon launches into South Korea this week, describing the act that sent bags of trash across the border as a violation of the Korean War Armistice Agreement and international law. U.S. Army Maj.
Mayra Nañez, a spokesperson for the UNC, said North Korea had disrupted efforts to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and affected local citizens by sending the balloons into South Korean airspace, requiring a formal UNC investigation.
“The DPRK has repeatedly stated its desire to be treated as a responsible member of the international community, but the act of sending balloons containing fecal matter and other contaminants into a neighbor’s airspace and affecting its populace is irresponsible,” Nañez said.
“We condemn any violations of international law that disrupt efforts to preserve peace on the Korean Peninsula.” North Korea launched at least 260 balloons carrying trash into South Korea on Tuesday night, days after Pyongyang threatened to send “mounds of filth” over the border in retaliation to South Korean activists’ anti-regime leafleting”.
The question is- whether any provisions of the international instruments have been breached by the above-mentioned state-coordinated N Korean activities.
The said article answered this question in the following language “The UNC may have been referring to Article 6 of the Armistice Agreement, which states that neither side should “execute any hostile act within, from, or against the demilitarized zone,” an area the DPRK may have breached through its apparently state-coordinated launches.
With respect to international law, the 1989 Basel Convention – to which the DPRK is a party – prohibits the unauthorized transportation of hazardous materials and waste across borders, a restriction that North Korea likely violated by sending waste material directly into ROK airspace”.
Another relevant point is – whether leafleting by South Korean activists could also be considered a breach of the Armistice Agreement or international law.
This point was also discussed in the article mentioned above in the following language “The UNC, a U.S.-led multinational military force responsible for maintaining the Korean War Armistice, has so far been silent about South Korean activist groups’ anti-regime leafleting, which the DPRK has regularly criticized and cited as the reason it carried out its own balloon launches.
At the time of publication, the UNC had not responded to NK News questions about whether leafleting by ROK activists could also be considered a breach of the Armistice Agreement or international law. One observer suggested the UNC statement overlooked key context behind North Korea’s balloon-launching activities.
“Unpopular take: Seems a little hard to invoke ‘responsible’ state behavior here when this was in response to ROK NGOs sending leaflets over airspace into the North … unless issued to both sides,” Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, wrote on social media about the statement. But Eric Foley, CEO of the NGO Voice of the Martyrs Korea that regularly launches balloons carrying Bibles into North Korea, maintained that the UNC statement was right to only target launches by the DPRK state and ignore those by ROK civil society. “The North Korean launch was conducted under the aegis of the North Korean government as an explicit expression of state policy,” he told NK News.
“Launches from South Korea are conducted by private individuals and groups in accordance with internationally recognized human rights,” Foley continued, stating that “these launches are not conducted in order to advance any state policy but rather as a means of communication among ordinary people without government mediation or interference.” As a result, Foley argued that activist launches from the ROK neither breach the Armistice Agreement or international law, but fall within the purview of local legislation.
“Such launches have always been subject to South Korean laws regarding public safety, which further substantiates the reality that launching in the south is the work of private individuals and groups, not the South Korean government”.
It is important to note that N Korea is a party to some important human rights instruments. It, however, has failed so far to bring compliant measures respecting human rights domestically. Its missile activities are not good at all as per the UN Security Council resolutions.
Its trash balloon launches cannot be any good for regional peace and stability. Its records of human rights abuses cannot help it to find a room in the list of responsible members. Peace-loving people, however, have been looking forward to a time when N Korea would be treated to be a responsible member of the international community.
(The author is a barrister-at-law, human rights activist and an advocate at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh).