글로벌 한국과 인권: 동북아시아의 맥락에서 본 한국 인권정책의 함의 = Global Korea and Human Rights: Implications of Human Rights Policies in South Korea, In the Context of North East Asia

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Despite attempts to ameliorate human rights conditions throughout the world for over the last sixty years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created, human rights is still very much a critical agenda in today`s global politics. Although the region in Asia lacks formal human rights institutions, the states in North East Asia such as China, Japan, and South Korea have strengthened their commitments to human rights norms. South Korea has actively engaged in human rights issues by implementing various human rights policies since the 1990s. In order to assess the implications of South Korea`s human rights policies on the region of North East Asia, this study examines the textual interactions for the UN monitoring bodies and at the National Human Rights Commission of Korea. Conceptualizing human rights as places where the subjectivity of states are imagined, this study explores the scope of states` obligations to human rights using the case of South Korea. This paper finds that interactions at both the UN monitoring bodies and the Commission of Korea emphasize international and domestic obligations of states, which as a result (re)produces the norm that each state should improve human rights within its own territory. Considering that various inter-state activities have a profound impact on the conditions of individual people`s lives, developing extraterritorial obligations to human rights will be crucial for improving human rights conditions in North East Asia as a whole.